Sj^jigje?^^ 


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The  Glenn  Negley  Collection 
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ROADTOWN 


ROADTOWN 


BY 

EDGAR  CHAMBLESS 


NEW  YORK 
ROADTOWN  PRESS 

150  NASSAU  STREET 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1910 

BY 

EDGAR  CHAMBLESS 


\no 


DEDICATION 

This  book  is  dedicated  to  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  a 
straight  player  of  a  crooked  game,  who,  it  is  said, 
played  his  usual  role  in  the  Wall  Street  manipulations 
of  the  Central  Railroad  of  Georgia  securities,  which 
adroitly  and  legally  absorbed  the  small  savings  and 
happiness  of  many  unsophisticated  investors  —  an 
action  which,  in  my  case  at  least,  proved  to  be  a  bless- 
ing in  disguise,  for  it  made  me  suffer  first  and  then 
made  me  think.  Hence  the  gratitude  and  consequent 
dedication  to  Mr.  Morgan  for  starting  the  train  of 
thought,  which  finally  resulted  in  the  invention  of 
Roadtown,  a  plan  for  side-stepping  the  crooked  game 
as  now  played  so  that  henceforth  whosoever  will  may 
become  a  straight  player  of  a  straight  game. 


FOREWORD 

Nineveh,  Babylon,  Rome,  London,  New 
York, — all  cities  from  the  twilight  of  the 
past  to  the  high  noon  of  the  present  have  been 
constructed  on  one  plan,  which  is  no  plan  at 
all.  Like  Topsy,  they  jest  growed,  with  no 
further  aims  in  view  than  to  huddle  together 
for  the  sake  of  companionship  and  self-protec- 
tion against  enemies.  A  map  of  the  haphaz- 
ard streets  straying  crookedly  through  them 
looked  like  cracks  in  an  earthenware  dish. 
The  siege-walls  which  until  recently  sur- 
rounded them  emphasized  the  prisoner-like  ex- 
istence of  their  inhabitants.  Noise,  dirt,  dis- 
ease, suffocation  and  confusion,  crime — these 
spirits  of  evil  took  up  their  abode  in  the  midst 
of  them,  never  to  be  dislodged,  and  students  of 
political  economy,  hygiene,  decency  and  mo- 
rality wasted  eloquence  and  logic  in  showing 
how  bad  it  all  was,  and  in  suggesting  pica- 
yune    and     transient     remedies.     The     true 

1 


2  FOREWORD 

Moses,  with  the  effectual  remedy,  which  will 
lead  us  out  of  our  long  Egyptian  bondage, 
arrives  only  to-day,  and  if  we  will  but  follow 
the  teachings  of  the  gospel  contained  in  the 
ensuing  pages,  we  may  be  free,  healthy, 
wealthy  and  happy  forevermore. 

This  Moses  of  ours,  contemporarily  incar- 
nated as  Mr.  Chambless,  arrives  at  the  psycho- 
logical moment  when  we  are  all  ready  for 
him.  The  Jeremiahs  of  rotten  conditions  and 
the  Cassandras  of  impending  woe  had  pre- 
pared us  for  the  necessity  of  change,  and  the 
Edisons,  Teslas  and  Lodges  of  electrical  and 
other  inventions  had  supplied  the  means  for  it. 
The  great  riddle  was  ripe  for  the  guessing: 
and  Mr.  Chambless  has  guessed  it. 

Transportation,  distribution,  and  the  mid- 
dle-man,— what  a  waste  of  time,  energy,  econ- 
omy and  common  sense  are  involved  in  our 
present  handling  of  these  elements?  The  do- 
mestic servant  problem, — how  sorry  and  slip- 
shod a  solution  of  it  are  the  hotel  and  board- 
ing house  of  to-day?  The  elimination  of  the 
open  country  from  our  children's  training  and 
from  our  own  opportunities  for  peace  and  san- 


FOREWORD  3 

ity, — what  a  paltry  and  impotent  substitute 
for  it  is  the  hybrid  suburb?  Personal  inde- 
pendence, social  harmony,  full  value  for  work 
done,  adequate  leisure  after  toil, — does  not 
this  sound  like  the  Millennium?  Read  Mr. 
Chambless,  O  ye  captives  of  Civilization,  and 
burst  your  shackles ! 

He  takes  a  map  and  a  ruler  and  draws  you 
a  straight  line  from  the  Atlantic  coast  to  the 
Alleghanies,  thence  on  to  the  Mississippi,  so 
across  the  prairies  to  the  Rockies,  and  down 
to  the  very  sands  of  the  Pacific.  What  does 
this  line  stand  for?  It  stands  for  the  site  of 
the  New  City;  and  there  may  be  as  many 
more  of  them  as  you  can  make  straight  lines 
from  any  given  point  to  any  other,  in  any  di- 
rection along  and  athwart  the  continent.  A 
single  line  of  houses,  superimposed  upon 
three  lines  of  railway,  one  on  top  of  the  other, 
underground,  two  stories  of  living  and  work- 
ing rooms  above-ground,  a  continuous  prom- 
enade along  the  roofs,  and  gardens  and  coun- 
try front  and  back  all  the  way.  Concrete 
"poured"  houses  (Edison's  patent)  ;  smoke- 
less,    noiseless,     unintermittent,     arrow-swift 


4.  FOREWORD 

trains,  local  and  express,  bearing  you  at  all 
times,  in  no  time,  to  your  precise  destination 
and  back;  telephones,  telegraphs,  teleposts, 
parcel-carriers,  freight  service,  compact,  punc- 
tual, prompt,  accurate,  enabling  you  to  live 
along  the  line  from  part  to  part  and  from  end 
to  end,  and  be  served  with  the  best  at  the 
cheapest  at  all  times,  while  sitting  in  your  easy 
chair;  house-work  done  mechanically,  and 
your  private  trade  or  profession  followed  in 
your  own  workrooms  at  minimum  expense  of 
time  and  effort  and  at  greatest  profit;  rent 
reduced,  taxes  minimized,  slums  exter- 
minated, pure  food,  fresh  air  and  exercise  ad 
libitum;  politics  purified,  cut-throat  competi- 
tion supplanted  by  rational  cooperation, — in 
short,  the  means  for  erecting  mankind  to  its 
full  stature  and  rendering  everybody  free, 
useful,  happy  and  wise  can  be  secured  by  Mr. 
Chambless's  Roadtown,  and  the  moment  to  be- 
gin is  Now !  Read  his  book  and  get  together. 
Have  we  not  waited  long  enough?  He  has 
spent  half  a  lifetime  perfecting  his  plans ;  they 
are  as  practical  as  they  are  attractive,  and  his 


FOREWORD  5 

only  opponents  are  shiftless  habits,  stupid  in- 
ertia, and  blind  prejudice. 

But  before  the  first  Roadtown  has  been  built 
out  ten  miles  into  the  wilderness,  it  will  have 
become  an  object-lesson  before  which  all  foes 
will  gladly  transform  themselves  into  friends, 
and  all  critics  become  eulogists.  Aviation  has 
a  mighty  future:  but  the  grand  step  forward 
in  Twentieth  Century  civilization  is  Road- 
town,  for  not  only  is  it  an  incomparable  benefit 
in  itself,  but  it  affords  all  other  useful  inven- 
tions their  best  medium  toward  perfection. 

Julian  Hawthoene. 


THE  MAN  CHAMBLESS 

BY   JOHN    HAYNES   HOLMES 

It  was  about  two  years  ago  that  a  tall, 
gaunt,  pale  young  man  entered  my  church 
study  and  said,  in  quite  confident  terms — "I 
want  a  long  talk  with  you,  sir,  for  I've  got 
something  that  I  believe  will  interest  you." 

Being  not  wholly  unused  to  the  ways  of 
agents,  promoters,  inventors  and  various  kinds 
of  visionaries,  I  felt  somewhat  impatient  at 
this  unhesitating  demand  for  a  liberal  share  of 
my  time;  but  I  told  my  visitor,  as  pleasantly 
as  possible,  to  be  seated  and  to  describe  the 
thing  which  he  thought  would  "interest"  me. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  my  acquaintance 
with  Mr.  Edgar  Chambless,  the  author  of  this 
book,  and  the  opening  words  of  my  introduc 
tion  to  Roadtown. 

At  that  time,  Roadtown  was  nothing  but  a 
dream, — a  crude  and  imperfect  idea,  as  com- 

7 


8  FOREWORD 

pared  with  the  careful  and  well-tested  con- 
ception which  is  here  given  to  the  public.  To 
its  inventor  it  appeared  even  then,  in  its  orig- 
inal form,  to  contain  the  solution  of  most 
every  perplexing  problem  of  modern  social 
life, — to  me,  to  whom  it  came  not  as  a  slowly 
dawning  idea  but  as  an  immediate  revelation, 
it  appeared  to  be  only  one  more  extravagant 
and  utterly  impracticable  vision,  akin  to  that 
invention,  once  laid  before  me  by  a  dear  old 
man,  whereby  light  and  heat  might  be  end- 
lessly generated  without  the  combustion  of 
any  fuel,  or  to  that  other  wonderful  idea,  com- 
mended to  me  by  a  devoted  enthusiast,  where- 
by the  drama  was  to  be  made  the  oasis  of 
all  ethical  instruction  and  the  theater  the 
school  of  morals. 

Something  in  Mr.  Chambless'  personality, 
however,  held  my  attention  and  won  my  sym- 
pathy. In  our  first  talk  together,  I  was 
made  to  believe  in  him  even  while  I  could  not 
find  it  within  reason  to  believe  in  the  revolu- 
tionary possibilities  of  his  conception,  and  so 
I  asked  him  to  call  again.  And  from  that 
time  to  this,  I  have  met  him  and  talked  with 


FOREWORD  9 

him  frequently.  I  have  seen  his  dream  be- 
come transformed  from  an  ill-conceived  vision 
into  a  well-conceived  and  thoroughly  practical 
idea.  I  have  seen  the  man  himself  rise  from 
the  position  of  a  visionary  dreamer,  seeking 
the  ears  of  any  who  would  listen,  to  that  of  a 
recognized  genius,  welcomed  in  the  offices  of 
editors  and  publishers,  and  received  on  equal 
terms  by  the  best  known  architects  and  in- 
ventors of  the  nation.  I  have  seen  Roadtown 
subjected  by  competent  men  to  the  most  rigid 
mechanical  and  economic  criticisms,  and  be- 
held it  emerge  triumphant.  I  have  seen  Mr. 
Chambless  convert  architects,  mechanics,  char- 
ity workers,  philanthropists,  and  cost-of-liv- 
ing experts  from  scoffing  impatience  to  en- 
thusiastic faith.  I  have  had  the  privilege,  in 
a  word,  of  watching  the  triumphant  progress 
of  a  great  and  original  idea,  and  the  heroic 
personal  victory  of  a  true  inventive  genius. 

During  all  of  this  time  I  have  done  nothing 
but  "lend  my  ears"  to  Mr.  Chambless.  Un- 
able to  help  him  to  work  out  his  ideas  in  any 
practical  way,  I  have  tried  to  serve  him  as  a 
friend  and  confidant.     To  me  he  has  unfolded 


10  FOREWORD 

his  joys  and  his  sorrows — revealed  his  feelings 
of  alternating  despair  and  hope — told  the 
tales  now  of  success  and  now  of  failure.  For 
two  years  past,  I  have  watched  and  listened, 
and  all  the  while  my  faith  in  Mr.  Chambless 
has  grown  ever  stronger  and  my  sympathy 
with  his  endeavor  ever  deeper.  Indeed,  for 
some  months  it  has  been  my  feeling  that  I  had 
no  higher  duty  than  that  of  helping  as  best 
I  could,  by  the  word  of  good-will,  the  hand- 
clasp of  friendship,  and  the  listening  ear  of 
personal  faith,  one  of  the  few  men  I  have  ever 
met  in  my  experience  who  was  truly  laying 
down  his  life  for  the  sake  of  a  great  and  un- 
selfish idea. 

Mr.  Hawthorne,  in  his  Foreword,  has  tes- 
tified to  his  belief  in  the  idea  of  Roadtown; 
I  would  here  testify,  in  my  Foreword,  to  my 
belief  in  Mr.  Chambless.  He  is  made  of  the 
stuff  of  heroes — those  who  have  sacrificed 
home,  friends,  social  positions,  money,  per- 
sonal comfort,  yea  life  itself,  in  the  service  of 
humanity.  His  is  the  spirit  of  perfect  devo- 
tion to  an  ideal.  He  represents  in  his  person 
the  type  of  valiant  martyrdom,  which  I  have 


FOREWORD  11 

read  about  a  thousand  times  in  books,  but  have 
met  not  more  than  a  half-dozen  times  in  real 
life.  As  to  whether  his  scheme  is  practicable 
or  not,  I  cannot  say.  Experts,  not  accus- 
tomed to  being  swept  off  their  feet  by  bursts 
of  enthusiasm  over  chimerical  ideas,  have  tes- 
tified that  it  is.  As  to  whether  his  concep- 
tion will  solve  all  the  problems  of  social  life 
which  he  says  it  will  solve,  I  again  cannot  say. 
Experience  teaches  that  every  original  idea 
has  revolutionary  possibilities. 

But  as  to  Mr.  Chambless  himself,  I  can  say, 
and  say  with  enthusiasm,  that  he  is  a  man  de- 
serving of  the  confidence  of  men.  Mr.  Haw- 
thorne commends  Roadtown  to  the  earnest 
consideration  of  all  thoughtful  persons  for  it- 
self. I  commend  Roadtown  in  a  similar  way 
for  its  inventor.  Prove  him  wrong  if  you 
can,  but  first  master  his  ideas. 

Church  of  the  Messiah,  June  15th,  1910. 
Park  Ave.  and  34th  St., 
New  York  City. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I  PAGE 

When  I  Began  to  Think 17 

How  I  came  to  invent  Roadtown 18 

CHAPTER  II 

A  New  Conception  of  Transportation 21 

Transportation   in   nature 23 

Our  disjointed  civilization 27 

CHAPTER  III 

Line  Distribution  —  The  Logical  Outcome 31 

Transportation  determines  the  form  of  cities  ....  33 

Building  in  one  dimension 35 

A  line  of  city  through  the  country 38 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Roadtown  Plan  of  Construction 40 

To  be  built  of  cement 41 

The  railroad  will  be  noiseless 43 

Speed  possibilities 46 

The  street  upon  the  roof 53 

CHAPTER  V 

Civilization  Through  Pipes  and  Wires 59 

Water 63 

Sewerage 64 

Heating 65 

13 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Refrigeration 65 

Drinking  water 66 

Bath  and  toilet 67 

Gas 68 

Vacuum 68 

Disinfecting  gas 69 

Electric  light 69 

Electric  power 69 

Telephones 70 

Dictograph 71 

Telegraphone 1-2 

CHAPTER  VI 

Roadtown  Housekeeping 74 

Woman's  work  not  specialized 74 

No  laundry  work  at  home 76 

Dusting  and  sweeping 78 

Making  beds  by  machinery 79 

Cooperative  cooking  practical 81 

The  end  of  household  drudgery 84 

CHAPTER  VII 

The  Servant  Problem  in  Roadtown 89 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Roadtown  Agriculture 90 

Sufficient  land  to  support  population 93 

Elimination  of  the  middle  man 99 

Cooperative  ownership  of  farm  tools 100 

CHAPTER  IX 

Industry  Returns  to  the  Home 102 

Wage  slavery   doomed 103 

A  work  room  in  every  home 105 

14 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A  new  type  of  factory 110 

A  special  message  to  women 112 

The  end  of  monotonous  labor 114 

CHAPTER  X 

Roadtown    Makes    Co-operation    Practical       ....  116 

Also  a  Mecca  for  the  individualist 117 

The  Roadtown  department  store 119 

CHAPTER  XI 

Roadtown  Education  and  Social  Life 123 

Roadtown  athletics 125 

Education  for  old  as  well  as  young 126 

Eyes  to  be  used  less  and  ears  more 128 

Mothers  for  public  school  teachers 131 

Lowest  death  rate  in  history 133 

A  home  in  the  truest  sense 137 

CHAPTER  XII 

Who  Will  Build  the  Roadtowns 139 

Home  rule   for   Roadtowners 142 

Detached  villas  practical  but  undesirable     ....   145 
Builders  of  Roadtown  take  minimum  risk     ....   148 

The  cost  of  the  first  mile  of  Roadtown 150 

Economy  increases  with  length 157 

A  real  remedy  for  congestion 161 

CHAPTER  XIII 

In  Roadtown  There  Will  be  no  Trusts 163 

Shall  we  miss  them 165 

The  Roadtown  religion 168 


15 


ROADTOWN 

CHAPTER    I 

WHEN  I  BEGAN  TO  THINK 

IN  the  panic  of  1893  I  was  in  the  city  of 
Los  Angeles.  I  had  received  word  from 
the  East  that  my  small  fortune  had  vanished 
as  a  result  of  an  ingenious  Wall  Street 
railroad  "reorganization."  I  had  drawn  my 
last  dollar  from  the  bank  and  had  spent  it. 
I  was  out  of  a  job.  I  didn't  know  where 
or  how  to  get  one,  for  I  had  been  troubled  with 
eye  strain  all  my  life,  and  had  little  experience 
in  the  work  of  the  world.  The  city  was 
thronging  with  experienced  and  trained  work- 
men, out  of  work  like  myself.  I  did  not  know 
where  the  price  of  my  next  week's  board  was 
coming  from — in  short,  I  was  stranded  in  a 
stagnant  world.     It  was  Sunday  afternoon. 

17 


18  ROADTOWN 

I  was  sitting  on  a  rock  on  top  of  a  hill  in  the 
heart  of  the  city.  The  ground  about  me  was 
vacant,  yet  I  could  have  thrown  a  stone  over 
the  precipice  into  the  principal  street  of  the 
city.  I  began  to  think — I  needed  money — 
there  was  no  opportunity  to  get  a  living  by 
working  with  my  hands.  I  grasped  eagerly 
at  any  idea  that  had  within  it  the  possibility 
of  creating  value,  wealth,  money,  bread, 
perhaps  butter  and  a  new  suit  of  clothes.  The 
ground  where  I  was  sitting  was  vacant  and 
comparatively  worthless.  I  asked  why?  The 
answer  was,  lack  of  transportation.  There 
was  no  convenient  way  for  people  to  get  on 
top  of  the  hill. 

Time  passed.  I  finally  located  in  New 
York  City  and  became  a  patent  investigator. 
I  continued  to  think  of  transportation  and  its 
relation  to  land  value. 

How  I  Came  to  Invent  Roadtown. 

In  my  business  as  a  dealer  in  patents  I  be- 
came acquainted  with  all  manner  of  inventions 
and  inventors.  I  found  that  most  inventions 
were  worthless,  that  a  very  few  were  practical 


ROADTOWN  19 

and  were  promoted  and  utilized  in  the  usual 
fashion.  Another  group  I  found  to  be  prac- 
tical and  workable  in  themselves,  but  not 
available  for  use  because  their  adoption  would 
throw  into  the  junk  heap  millions  of  dollars 
worth  of  old  machines,  and  hence  they  were 
bought  up  and  "shelved"  by  the  vested  inter- 
ests. And  still  another  group  could  not  be 
utilized  because  they  would  require  new  fran- 
chises which  men  with  little  capital  could  not 
purchase  of  the  political  franchise  jobbers. 
To  these  were  added  a  last  lot  of  inventions 
that  could  not  be  utilized  to  anything  like  their 
full  capacity  because  they  could  not  be  fitted 
into  the  crude  mechanism  of  the  present  style 
of  city  construction. 

So  I  began  to  dream  of  new  conditions  in 
which  some  of  these  shelved  inventions  might 
be  utilized  to  ease  the  burden  of  life  for  man- 
kind. One  plan  after  another  was  abandoned 
until  the  idea  occurred  to  me  to  lay  the  modern 
skyscraper  on  its  side  and  run  the  elevators 
and  the  pipes  and  the  wires  horizontally  in- 
stead of  vertically.  Such  a  house  would  not 
be  limited  by  the  stresses  and  strains  of  steel; 


20  ROADTOWN 

it  could  be  built  not  only  a  hundred  stories, 
but  a  thousand  stories  or  a  thousand  miles — in 
short,  I  had  found  a  workable  way  of  coupling 
housing  and  transportation  into  one  mechan- 
ism, and  a  human  way  for  land-moving  man  to 
live — I  would  not  cure  the  evils  of  congestion 
by  perfecting  congestion  as  is  the  case  with  the 
skyscraper — I  would  build  my  city  out  into  the 
country.  I  would  take  the  apartment  house 
and  all  its  conveniences  and  comforts  out 
among  the  farms  by  the  aid  of  wires,  pipes 
and  of  rapid  and  noiseless  transportation.  I 
would  extend  the  blotch  of  human  habitations 
called  cities  out  in  radiating  lines.  I  would 
surround  the  city  worker  with  the  trees  and 
grass  and  woods  and  meadows  and  the  farmer 
with  all  the  advantages  of  city  life — I  had 
invented  Roadtown. 


CHAPTER    II 

A   NEW   CONCEPTION   OF   TRANSPORTATION 

WHEN  I  use  the  word  transportation 
in  relation  to  Roadtown  I  do  not 
mean  what  the  term  usually  implies.  You 
often  hear  the  expression,  "our  transportation 
systems,"  but  your  conception  of  its  meaning 
is  limited  to  railroads,  boats  and  street  cars. 
The  other  crude  links  in  our  transportation 
system  are  invariably  called  by  other  names 
such  as  trucks,  carts,  delivery  wagons,  dumb- 
waiters, elevators,  etc.  It  is  true  that  these 
last  named  links  are  sometimes  referred  to  as 
transportation  devices,  but  not  as  a  part  of  a 
comprehensive  system  of  transportation. 

Roadtown  transportation  includes  all  the 
links  in  the  system  of  transportation  auto- 
matically coupled  into  one  system.  This  is 
what  I  mean  by  a  new  conception  of  transpor- 
tation. 

21 


22  ROADTOWN 

The  functions  of  housing  and  transporta- 
tion are  fully  coordinated  by  Nature  in  the 
individual  animal — legs  are  her  vehicle  of 
passenger  transportation,  talons  and  arms  are 
her  freight  system,  the  animal  body  is  the 
house.  Housing  and  transportation  exist  to- 
gether, being  mutually  interdependent.  They 
are  inseparable,  the  building  is  worthless  with- 
out transportation  and  conversely  there  would 
be  no  need  for  transportation  without  the 
house. 

There  is  no  better  illustration  of  the  need 
for  a  proper  combination  of  transportation 
and  housing  than  that  of  the  human  body. 
The  baby's  first  task  is  to  learn  to  use  its  trans- 
portation devices,  otherwise  its  house  or  body 
is  useless.  Life  is  full  of  lessons  of  the  neces- 
sity of  the  harmonious  combination  of  the 
functions  of  transportation  and  consumption. 
The  monkey  was  provided  with  means  for 
transporting  himself  up  the  banana  tree  and 
an  efficient  means  of  getting  the  banana  from 
the  stalk  to  his  mouth.  Gold  carried  from 
mines  in  Peru  to  a  jewelry  shop  in  Madrid; 


ROADTOWN  23 

men  carried  from  their  homes  in  Brooklyn  to 
their  offices  in  Wall  Street;  food  carried  from 
a  farm  in  Canada  to  a  dining-room  in  a  Boston 
hotel;  gas  carried  from  retorts  to  the  burner 
in  a  parlor  chandelier;  electricity  carried  from 
the  generator  in  Niagara  to  the  motors  in 
Rochester;  a  pound  of  steak  carried  by  the 
delivery  boy  to  the  basement  of  your  house  and 
pulled  up  in  a  dumb-waiter;  a  letter  carried 
by  a  postman;  the  song  of  a  Prima  Donna 
sent  scintillating  through  the  air  by  a  wireless 
phone — all  these  things  and  a  million  others 
are  but  a  civilized  man's  arms  and  legs — his 
means  of  transportation. 

Transportation  in  Nature. 

The  game  of  life  in  wild  nature  is  but  the 
getting  of  food  and  water  to  the  consuming 
plant  or  animal,  or  getting  the  more  adaptable 
animal  to  the  food  or  water  or  some  warm  spot, 
or  the  society  of  his  fellows.  So  the  life  of 
man,  whether  it  be  the  family  with  the  single 
house  or  the  city  with  its  many  houses,  shows 
a  similar  relation — things  needed  by  the  in- 


24  ROADTOWN 

habitants,  things  taken  from  the  place  where 
they  are  and  to  a  place  where  we  want  them — 
that  is  transportation. 

Start  out  in  the  morning,  number  your 
every  minute's  occupation,  watch  what  your 
neighbors  are  doing.  The  man  on  the  stairs, 
the  wagon  on  the  street,  the  rumbling  subway 
train  in  a  three  million  dollar  a  mile  right  of 
way,  the  elevator  in  the  skyscraper,  the  office 
boy  at  beck  and  call — it  is  all  transportation. 
Run  over  in  your  mind  the  work  of  the  office 
and  brain  workers  in  a  city  business  section, 
how  many  of  them  are  engaging  in  planning, 
directing  and  accounting  the  various  forms  of 
transportation. 

In  fact,  every  hour  of  existence  we  are  per- 
forming some  act  of  transportation  except 
when  asleep.  If  we  allow  eight  hours  for  rest 
we  find  that  two-thirds  of  our  lives  are  spent 
in  transporting  ourselves  to  our  wants  or  our 
wants  to  ourselves. 

The  basic  principle  of  Roadtown  is  a  plan 
to  give  the  social  body  proper  arms  and  legs, 
to  make  them  not  as  they  are,  separate  and  un- 
coordinated functions,  but  as  part,  in  fact  the 


ROADTOWN  25 

most  important  part,  of  the  scheme  of  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  members  of  society  are  all  engaged  in 
transporting  themselves  and  their  belongings 
a  goodly  portion  of  their  time,  and  besides  a 
large  group  is  exclusively  engaged  in  the  work 
of  transportation.  Moreover,  the  so-called 
productive  labors  are  at  every  step  interwoven 
with  operations  of  transportation.  Analyze 
for  a  moment  the  work  of  the  factory,  of  the 
farm — how  much  of  it  is  production,  how  much 
is  transportation  ?  Could  we,  like  Aladdin,  rub 
a  mystic  lamp  and  cause  things  to  be  created 
from  nothing,  we  would  indeed  be  well  served. 
But  could  we  command  the  genie  of  trans- 
portation, the  will  to  wish  what  is  from  where 
it  is  to  the  place  where  we  want  it,  our  power 
would  be  equally  miraculous  and  quite  as  use- 
ful. 

Our  methods  of  production,  though  still 
extremely  wasteful,  are  constantly  growing  in 
efficiency.  In  this  age  a  minority  of  mankind 
produce  for  the  entire  population.  A  con- 
stant stream  of  people  from  the  farm  pours 
into  the  city.     These  people  produce  nothing 


26  ROADTOWN 

and  expect  to  live  by  distributing  goods  to  each 
other;  but  congestion  of  population  in  large 
cities  introduces  insolvable  mechanical  diffi- 
culties in  distribution,  until  railroads,  ware 
houses,  trucks,  wholesale  and  retail  stores, 
delivery  wagons,  grocery  boys  and  dumb- 
waiters, become  congested;  the  machine  clogs 
and  thus  the  growing  efficiency  of  modern  pro- 
duction is  lost  through  a  more  rapidly  growing 
waste  in  distribution. 

The  increasing  number  of  those  who  get 
their  living  by  taking  a  slice  of  profit  and  the 
growing  expense  due  to  the  ever  increasing 
mechanical  difficulties  in  distribution  are  evils 
that  aggravate  each  other. 

As  the  makers  of  law  live  principally  by  the 
profits  of  distribution,  they  will  not  change  the 
scheme,  nor  can  the  wealthy,  with  their  country 
villas  legislate  the  modern  city  tenant  back  to 
the  loneliness,  long  hours  and  lack  of  con- 
veniences of  farm  life.  A  proposition  that 
would  combine  cheaper  rents,  greater  con- 
veniences and  give  all  an  opportunity  to 
engage  in  productive  work  would  be  a  real 
solution  for  the  high  cost  of  living.     Roadtown 


ROADTOWN  27 

eliminates  all  possible  waste  and  relieves  the 
army  of  distributors  of  nine-tenths  of  their 
present  work,  thus  throwing  these  people  into 
productive  labors. 

Labor  which  results  in  the  creation  of  a 
concrete  product — something  that  can  be  eaten 
or  worn  is  generally  appreciated.  Transpor- 
tation, the  far  greater  necessity,  is  not  so 
readily  appreciated  as  a  source  of  wealth,  nor 
is  the  waste  in  transportation  so  quickly  seen 
or  remedied. 

Our  Disjointed  Civilization. 

Our  factories  and  our  farms — the  places  of 
production — our  houses  and  cities — places  of 
consumption,  and  our  railroad  trucks,  delivery 
wagons  and  dumb-waiters,  means  of  transpor- 
tation, have  been  developed  by  separate  minds 
— they  work  together — clumsily — wastefully. 
Civilization  is  a  black  cabinet  of  plates  and 
doughnuts,  arms  and  legs,  and  consuming 
mouths  dancing  around  in  an  uncoordinated 
fashion,  occasionally  getting  together  and 
serving  each  other,  but  more  often  missing  the 
mark — two  hands  going  to  one  mouth,  another 


28  ROADTOWN 

hand  missing  the  mouth  altogether;  there  is 
no  plan,  no  unity,  no  harmony,  no  mind  behind 
it  all.  The  farm  and  factory,  the  railroad  and 
the  city  grow  separately,  each  to  serve  the 
other  it  is  true,  but  the  machine  as  a  whole  is 
woefully  disjointed  and  inefficient.  We  may 
liken  our  present  system  of  living  to  old  style 
harvesting.  A  binder,  wonderful  enough  in 
itself,  left  the  bundles  of  grain  strewn  about 
the  field.  They  were  shocked  by  hand. 
Later  they  are  gathered  into  wagons  and 
hauled  to  the  farm  yard  and  built  into  stacks. 
Then  the  thresher  comes  and  with  another  com- 
plex machine  delivers  the  grain,  loose,  through 
a  running  spout,  where  men  weigh  it  and  sack 
it  and  load  it  into  wagons,  which  are  as  crude 
as  the  threshing  machine  itself. 

Compare  this  system,  wonderful  though  it 
be,  with  the  combined  header-thresher,  which 
at  one  operation  cuts,  threshes  and  delivers  the 
grain  weighed  and  sacked  into  the  wagon.  In 
the  combination  of  the  previous  operations 
many  of  the  steps,  the  binding  and  hauling  and 
stacking  and  weighing  drop  out.  The  machine 
simplified    the    whole    process,    it    eliminates 


ROADTOWN  29 

waste,  it  represents  a  unity  of  plan,  a  harmony 
of  operation. 

Our  modern  complex  systems  of  production, 
transportation  and  consumption,  like  the  old- 
fashioned  method  of  harvesting,  require  many 
separate  machines.  Take  the  one  product  of 
butter  for  illustration:  the  farmer  produces 
milk,  the  milk  hauler  carts  it  to  town,  the 
creamery  man  manufactures  the  butter,  then 
packs  it  into  tubs  and  sells  it  to  a  dealer;  the 
dealer  ships  it  to  the  city  by  rail  and  then  an- 
other truckman  delivers  it  to  a  jobber  which 
means  more  trucking;  the  jobber  molds  the 
butter  into  prints  and  boxes  them.  A  wagon 
takes  it  to  a  grocer  where  it  is  again  stored, 
sold,  and  goes  the  round  of  another  wagon,  a 
dumb-waiter,  a  pantry,  a  waiter,  a  table,  and 
at  last  consumption.  This  is  a  sample  story  of 
civilization,  a  heterogeneous  mass  of  independ- 
ently acting  individuals  and  separate  mechan- 
isms, full  of  mechanical  waste,  full  of  human 
waste,  full  of  financial  waste.  The  butter  fat 
as  is  now  wastefully  produced  is  worth  twenty 
cents  in  the  farmer's  milk  pail,  it  cost  two  cents 
to  skim  it  and  churn  it,  the  rest  is  transporta- 


30  ROADTOWN 

tion.  It  is  worth  forty  cents  at  the  grocery- 
store  and  fifty  cents  to  one  dollar  on  your 
table,  according  to  how  much  of  your  house- 
hold distribution  is  done  by  your  wife  who 
gives  services  gratis  and  how  much  by  servants 
whose  arms  and  legs  move  only  in  response  to 
the  rattle  of  the  shekels.  And  how  much 
would  this  service  of  transportation  cost  if  pro- 
duction, transportation  and  consumption,  like 
the  modern  header-thresher,  were  built  upon  a 
plan  of  coordination,  that  is,  if  the  farmer's 
dairy  was  on  a  transportation  line  with  the 
creamery,  and  the  creamery  on  a  line  with  the 
kitchen  where  machinery  and  specialized  labor 
are  available,  and  the  kitchen  was  on  a  line 
with  the  consumer's  dining-room,  and  the  only 
expense  of  transportation  was  the  cost  of 
power  to  move  the  material  object  and  the  cost 
of  labor  to  perform  the  actual  processes  of 
manufacture  that  intervene  between  produc- 
tion and  consumption. 

The  Roadtown  is  a  single  unified  plan  for 
the  arrangement  of  these  three  functions  of 
civilization — production,  transportation,  and 
consumption. 


CHAPTER    III 

LINE    DISTRIBUTION — THE     LOGICAL     OUTCOME 

CIVILIZATION  growing  up  in  a  sep- 
arate and  disjoined  fashion  has  re- 
sulted in  a  certain  arrangement  of  the 
population  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  At 
first  savage  men  roamed  the  plains  and 
forests  seeking  food.  The  advent  of  civ- 
ilization, industrial  and  social  cooperation, 
taught  men  the  advantage  of  gathering 
themselves  into  cities.  At  first  these  cities 
were  provisioned  from  the  country  by  means  of 
humans  or  animal  beasts  of  burden,  then  water 
transportation  caused  the  development  of 
greater  cities  on  rivers  and  harbors.  With  the 
advent  of  the  railroad,  together  with  the  trans- 
portation agencies  already  mentioned,  the  pro- 
visioning of  cities  became  limited  only  by  the 
ability  of  the  country  district  to  support  its 
own  population  and  that  of  the  city. 

31 


32  ROADTOWN 

The  occupation  of  the  city  people  was  chiefly 
that  of  manufacturing,  trading  and  grafting 
on  the  farmer  and  on  each  other.  The  inven- 
tion of  steam  power  made  it  economical  to 
assemble  workmen  into  large  factories  which 
added  another  cause  to  the  growth  of  cities. 
The  use  of  this  steam  power  forced  the  city 
worker  out  of  his  home  and  into  the  more  econ- 
omical factory,  thus  developing  the  factory 
system. 

The  continual  growth  of  cities  soon  filled  the 
land  with  large  groups  of  houses,  crowding 
each  other  for  room.  As  the  houses  were  built 
closer  and  closer  together,  the  amount  of  light 
and  air  was  shut  out,  in  order  that  the  distance 
the  workers  lived  from  their  work  might  not 
increase.  At  first  workers  went  from  their 
work  to  their  houses  on  foot,  later  by  means 
of  the  horse  car,  still  later  by  steam  car  and 
now  the  electric  car  is  supreme.  As  these 
transportation  facilities  first  used  to  get  pro- 
visions into  the  city  and  the  manufactured 
product  out  of  it  were  utilized  to  get  the  work- 
ers to  and  from  their  work,  the  houses  began 
to  follow  the  transportation  lines. 


ROADTOWN  33 

Transportation  Determines  the  Form  of 
Cities. 

As  time  and  the  expense  of  transportation 
rather  than  distance  were  the  elements  that 
governed  the  distance  from  the  heart  of  the 
city  that  could  be  used  for  workers'  homes,  the 
utilization  of  fixed  lines  of  traffic  resulted  in 
the  city  building  out  along  main  streets, 
trolleys  and  railroads.  Along  main  lines  of 
traffic,  as  between  two  important  cities,  the 
population  began  to  group  itself  into  lines. 

This  is  the  state  of  the  distribution  of  popu- 
lation to  be  found  in  the  world  to-day.  But 
the  present  distribution  is  imperfect.  The 
trolleys  carry  people  to  the  street  corner  but 
make  no  provision  for  getting  them  into  their 
homes  or  for  getting  the  meals  on  the  side- 
board, the  book  from  the  library  to  the  center 
table,  or  the  camphor  from  the  drug  store  to 
the  sick  room. 

The  means  of  conveying  the  necessities  of 
civilization  is  almost  wholly  that  of  rails,  pipes 
and  wires.  The  former  is  the  means  of  trans- 
porting  people   and   parcels,   the   second   of 


34  ROADTOWN 

liquids  and  gases,  the  third  of  electricity  in  its 
various  forms. 

These  mechanical  servants  have  been  placed 
in  the  streets  which  were  first  built  as  roadways 
for  carriages.  In  the  streets,  the  pipes  and 
wires  must  be  buried  beneath  the  pavement  at 
great  expense.  Through  these  streets,  fre- 
quently full  of  curves  and  angles  which  offer 
little  trouble  to  the  free  moving  horse-drawn 
vehicle,  the  rails  must  be  bent  and  the  cars 
slow  down  for  curves.  From  beneath  the 
pavement  the  pipes  and  wires  must  be  sep- 
arately led  into  the  basements  of  each  build- 
ing and  up  through  successive  stories  to  the 
apartments  above.  Within  the  building,  sep- 
arate vertical  car  lines  called  elevators,  must 
be  built  and  city  transportation  becomes  a 
matter  of  three  dimensions  with  train  service 
running  in  from  principal  outlying  points, 
cross-town  trolley  lines  and  vertical  elevators, 
all  separate  schemes  of  transportation  requir- 
ing changes  and  delays,  endless  duplication, 
colossal  expense  and  criminal  waste. 

Now  rails,  pipes  and  wires  can  be  most 
economically  laid  in  continuous  straight  lines. 


ROADTOWN  85 

In  the  case  of  railroads,  the  greater  the  speed 
without  stops  the  more  the  necessity  for 
straight  lines.  A  car  running  at  a  speed  of 
forty  miles  per  hour  has  sixteen  times  the  force 
for  derailment  as  a  car  at  ten  miles,  and  there 
is  a  like  increase  in  the  cost  in  power  and  time 
to  stop  the  car.  Moreover,  to  be  efficient  the 
railway  should  be  where  nothing  will  obstruct 
the  passage  of  trains.  Pipes  must  be  kept 
from  freezing,  live  wires  from  giving  shocks 
and  yet  all  must  be  available  for  new  installa- 
tion and  repairs.  None  of  these  needs  are 
filled  by  present  city  conditions ;  all  can  be  ful- 
filled if  the  city  is  planned  to  fit  the  rail,  pipe 
and  wire  civilization  of  to-day  instead  of  the 
pedestrian  and  equestrian  civilization  of  the 
past. 

Building  in  One  Dimension. 

The  Roadtown  is  a  scheme  to  organize  pro- 
duction, transportation  and  consumption  into 
one  systematic  plan.  In  an  age  of  pipes  and 
wires,  and  high  speed  railways  such  a  plan 
necessitates  the  building  in  one  dimension  in- 
stead of  three — the  line  distribution  of  popula- 


36  ROADTOWN 

tion  instead  of  the  pyramid  style  of  construc- 
tion. The  rail-pipe-and-wire  civilization  and 
the  increase  in  the  speed  of  transportation  is 
certain  to  result  in  the  line  distribution  of  pop- 
ulation because  of  the  almost  unbelievable 
economy  in  construction,  in  operation  and  in 
time.  The  people  will  return  to  Mother  Earth 
because  it  is  in  every  way  desirable  for  them 
to  do  so  and  not  because  some  merchant  prince, 
railroad  king  or  social  worker  says  they  ought 
to  go. 

In  modern  life  an  office  building,  store  or 
apartment  house  is  considered  especially  for- 
tunate if  it  has  a  rapid  transit  station  near  or 
better  still  within  the  building.  All  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Roadtown  will  live  upon  the 
main  line  and  be  near  the  station.  They  will 
live  there  because  the  utilities  of  civilization  can 
be  provided  there  more  economically  than  else- 
where. But  the  line  distribution  has  yet  an- 
other significance  of  as  great  importance  as  the 
more  safe  and  economical  distribution  of  peo- 
ple, parcels,  fluids  and  electricity. 

The  development  of  cities  was  originally 
brought  about  by  the  desire  of  men  to  get  close 


ROADTOWN  37 

together  for  industrial  needs  and  social  fellow- 
ship. This  same  want  for  ready  communica- 
tion and  distribution  of  men  and  things  I  have 
shown  can  now  be  most  completely  fulfilled  by 
the  city  which  will  be  strung  out  in  a  line.  In 
other  words,  the  very  laws  which  built  the  con- 
gested cities  will,  with  the  construction  of  the 
first  section  of  the  first  Roadtown,  surely  mark 
the  beginning  of  their  gradual  dissemination. 
Such  a  tendenc5T  can  already  be  seen  at  work, 
but  its  development  has  not  progressed  far  be- 
cause of  the  isolation  of  the  functions  of  house 
construction  and  horizontal  transportation 
devices. 

As  soon  as  horizontal  transportation  is  put 
in  the  house,  the  skyscraper  on  its  side,  and  is 
pointed  towards  the  endless  country  instead  of 
up  against  the  force  of  gravity,  and  the  won- 
derful transportation  devices  now  available 
are  installed,  you  will  see  the  cities  spread  out 
in  lines  amidst  the  fields  and  farms,  as  if  by 
magic.  Indeed  it  will  be  the  magic  of  econ- 
omy, the  natural  force  to  which  all  of  humanity 
always  promptly  responds. 

The  height  of  the  skyscraper  is  limited  by 


38  ROADTOWN 

the  stresses  and  strains  on  the  steel,  by  the 
instability  of  the  foundation,  by  congestion  of 
the  elevators.  The  length  of  the  skyscraper 
on  its  side  has  no  limit  for  it  is  built  on  solid 
ground,  it  has  no  lighting  and  ventilating  prob- 
lems. Its  transportation  system  by  the  aid  of 
local  and  express  service,  by  the  fact  that  it  can 
run  trains,  not  single  cars,  and  can  run  many 
trains  following  each  other  on  one  track  and 
not  require  a  whole  shaft  for  a  single  car  as  in 
the  case  of  the  elevator,  removes  the  mechanical 
limitation  of  length  of  the  horizontal  sky- 
scraper. We  can  build  not  only  a  thousand 
feet,  but  a  thousand  miles  and  have  every  story 
connected  with  every  other  story  by  rails,  pipes 
and  wires. 

A  Line  of  City  Through  the  Country. 

The  Roadtown  will  start  at  the  end  of  the 
present  subways  or  other  rapid  transportation 
systems  of  present  cities  or  tap  these  lines  far 
enough  out  to  get  comparatively  cheap  land 
and  build  out  in  the  direction  of  other  cities, 
passing  near  enough  to  the  smaller  cities, 
towns  and  villages  to  summarily  attract  much 


ROADTOWN  39 

of  their  renting  population.  This  movement 
will  surely  mark  the  "beginning  of  the  end"  of 
such  wasteful  loafing  centers  for  the  few,  and 
the  stagnant  pools  of  wasted  energy  for  the 
many.  It  will  be  a  line  of  city  through  the 
country.  It  will  take  the  apartment  house  to 
the  farmer  and  incidentally  free  the  farmer 
from  the  necessity  of  feeding  the  well-meaning 
townsfolk  who  give  him  in  return  scant  cloth- 
ing, the  use  of  a  hitching  post  for  his  team — 
sometimes ;  a  place  to  get  his  weekly  paper  and 
a  little  social  fellowship  on  the  sidewalk  Sat- 
urday afternoons.  It  will  give  the  subur- 
banite all  that  he  seeks  in  the  country  and  all 
that  he  regrets  to  leave  in  town.  It  will  enable 
him  to  play  at  farming,  do  real  farming  or 
retain  his  city  job.  The  people  will  go  to  the 
land  and  take  the  best  things  of  the  city  with 
them,  take  in  fact  all  that  is  good  in  the  city 
to-day  and  in  addition  much  that  is  now 
pigeon-holed  as  unused  patents,  because  the 
conglomeration  of  isolated  homes  and  the  crude 
horse  paths  called  streets,  owned  by  "hold-up 
men"  called  politicians,  do  not  permit  of  the 
general  adoption  of  these  great  inventions. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE   ROADTOWN    PLAN   OF   CONSTRUCTION 

THE  first  problem  in  making  a  village 
or  a  city  house  is  the  excavation  for 
foundation  and  cellar.  In  the  case  of  iso- 
lated houses  the  cellar  is  dug  by  hand  labor 
and  dirt  carried  away  by  horse-drawn  carts. 
Witness  the  difference  in  method  between 
such  excavation  and  that  of  a  canal,  the 
grading  of  a  railroad  or  any  other  proj- 
ect that  is  to  be  made  in  line.  In  the 
latter  case  the  steam  shovel  replaces  the  spade, 
and  the  work  train,  the  dump  cart. 

Those  familiar  with  city  subway  construc- 
tion will  at  first  think  the  idea  of  a  railway  in 
the  basement  is  an  expensive  luxury.  But 
the  excavation  of  the  Roadtown  basement 
should  be  compared  with  the  New  York  State 
canal,  not  the  New  York  Subway. 

40 


ROADTOWN  41 

To  be  Built  of  Cement. 

The  Roadtown  will  be  built  of  cement,  fire 
proof  and  vermin  proof.  Modern  so-called 
fire  proof  buildings  are  frequently  destroyed 
by  fire.  This  is  because  they  contain  combus- 
tible material.  If  material  in  a  large  building 
gets  on  fire  and  through  stairways  and  air 
shafts  sets  fire  to  other  combustibles,  the  whole 
building  is  heated  to  the  ignition  point. 

The  horizontal  Roadtown  house,  only  two 
stories  high,  cannot  be  destroyed  in  this 
fashion.  Even  if  a  Roadtown  were  built  of 
Carolina  pine,  it  would  still  be  a  safer  fire  risk 
than  modern  fire  proof  buildings  in  cities.  A 
fire  raging  in  a  continuous  house  could  as  a  last 
resort  be  stopped  by  two  sticks  of  dynamite. 
In  the  city  the  fire  line  must  be  fought  on  all 
sides  of  an  ever  enlarging  circle.  Dropping 
this  theoretical  point  we  can  say  that  the  really 
fire  proof  Roadtown  can  be  made  at  a  fraction 
of  the  cost  of  making  a  building  of  similar  en- 
closing space  semi-fire  proof,  which  experience 
has  shown  is  the  best  that  can  be  done  with  city 
buildings   of   the   box   or   tower   type.     The 


42  ROADTOWN 

Roadtown  very  likely  will  not  carry  fire  in- 
surance nor  maintain  a  fire  department,  as 
every  house  will  have  a  fire  hose  which  can  be 
instantly  applied.  The  frightful  expense  and 
loss  of  life  (and  recently  the  source  of  graft) 
that  our  present  civilization  suffers  because  of 
fire,  will  be  told  to  the  Roadtown  children  as 
we  now  tell  about  Indian  massacres. 

Roadtown  will  be  proof  against  the  "cy- 
clones" that  are  the  evil  genius  of  country  life 
in  the  South  and  West.  As  for  earthquakes, 
San  Francisco's  experience  proves  that  rein- 
forced concrete  is  the  best  earthquake  resister 
known. 

Any  building  material  may  be  used,  but  we 
will  here  consider  cement,  poured  into  moulds, 
as  a  standard. 

Thomas  A.  Edison,  whose  efforts  at  perfect- 
ing a  method  of  molding  complete  houses  by 
pouring  cement  into  molds,  has  attracted 
world-wide  attention,  has  donated  to  the  Road- 
town the  use  of  his  cement  house  patents. 

The  Roadtown,  like  the  railroad,  will  get 
much  of  its  building  material,  such  as  sand  and 
stone,  along  the  right  of  way,  and  haul  it  to  its 


ROADTOWN  43 

place  in  the  structure  on  the  railroad  which 
will  be  the  first  part  of  a  Roadtown  to  be  con- 
structed. Thus  the  expense  will  be  greatly 
reduced. 

Wagon  hauling  and  hand  mixing,  the  heavi- 
est items  of  expense  in  cement  construction, 
are  entirely  eliminated  in  Roadtown  where  the 
concrete  is  mixed  and  poured  from  a  machine 
located  on  a  work  train. 

The  Railroad  will  be  Noiseless. 

The  essential  of  the  Roadtown  being  the 
combination  of  transportation  and  house  con- 
struction, the  Roadtown  if  invented  in  any  age 
before  the  present  one  would  have  been  worth- 
less. The  horse-pulled  vehicle  or  the  steam 
or  gasoline  engine  would  be  a  nuisance  in  any 
part  of  a  building  used  for  a  dwelling.  Elec- 
trical transportation,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a 
perfectly  refined  method  of  locomotion  and 
well  suited  for  indoor  uses. 

Of  the  various  systems  of  transportation 
devised  and  now  available,  I  believe  the  Boyes 
Monorail  to  be  the  most  applicable  to  the 
needs  of  a  continuous  house,  and  I  have  pre- 


44  ROADTOWN 

vailed  upon  Mr.  Boyes  to  donate  the  use  of  his 
patents  to  Roadtown. 

This  wonderful  invention  was  perfected 
after  many  years  of  intense  application  by  a 
thorough  mechanic  and  electrician.  It  has 
been  demonstrated  and  found  to  be  thoroughly 
practical  and  is  far  in  advance  of  either  the 
present  two-railed  electric  railroads,  or  the 
Gyroscopic  types  of  Monorail  cars  which  have 
lately  attracted  considerable  attention  because 
of  their  seeming  disregard  of  the  law  of 
gravity. 

The  Gyroscopic  Monorail,  at  a  great  ex- 
pense and  complication,  eliminates  one  rail,  but 
there  is  no  particular  gain  in  so  doing,  in  fact 
there  is  a  distinct  loss  for  the  thing  that  limits 
the  speed  of  the  ordinary  electric  car,  is  the 
loss  of  grip  on  the  rail,  and  in  the  Gyroscopic 
Monorail  the  bearing  surface  of  the  steel 
wheels  is  reduced  to  just  one-half  that  of  the 
ordinary  car. 

The  Boyes  Monorail  uses  the  principle  of 
the  gyroscope  used  in  the  Brennan  Mono- 
rail with  a  difference  that  where  the  Bren- 


ROADTOWN  45 

nan  gyroscope  acts  as  a  top  the  Boyes  Mono- 
rail is  kept  true  by  the  heavy  drive  wheel  which 
acts  on  the  principle  of  a  hoop  or  rolling 
wheel.  The  Boyes  train  is  made  in  short  cars 
or  sections  rigidly  coupled  together  with  rub- 
ber padded  couplings.  Each  car  or  section 
rides  on  a  single  concave  leather  faced  wheel 
that  runs  on  a  broad  convex  steel  rail.  This 
wheel  is  set  up  within  the  body  of  the  car,  thus 
permitting  the  car  to  straddle  the  track. 

There  is  a  door  on  either  side  of  each  eight- 
foot  car  or  section,  which  is  opened  and  closed 
electrically.  Only  six  people  enter  at  a  door- 
way, thus  eliminating  all  delays  and  jams  at 
crowded  stations. 

The  leather  faced  wheel  grips  the  track  to 
such  a  great  degree  that  it  is  practicable  to 
build  the  cars  as  light  per  passenger  as  is  the 
bicycle,  thus  giving  great  efficiency  and  power. 
A  train  of  the  Boyes  type  to  carry  the  same 
passengers  as  the  subway  cars  of  New  York, 
weighs  one-thirtieth  as  much.  The  power  is 
electrically  fed  to  the  train  from  a  small 
"third"  rail. 


46  ROADTOWN 

Speed  Possibilities. 

I  hesitate  to  make  any  predictions  as  to  the 
speed  attainable  in  the  Boyes  Monorail.  As 
is  generally  known,  the  world's  speed  records 
are  now  held  by  automobiles,  not  railway 
trains.  The  record  to  date  is  about  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-two  miles  an  hour  made  by 
Oldfield,  at  Ormond  Beach,  Florida.  It  is  the 
traction  grip  in  the  rubber  tired  wheel  that 
makes  this  speed  possible.  The  Boyes  car 
will  have  this  grip  and  instead  of  sand  to  run 
on  will  have  a  rail  from  which  it  will  have  to 
jump  thirty  inches  to  be  derailed.  The  car 
cannot  skid,  jump  the  track  nor  upset.  It 
does  not  carry  the  weight  of  its  power  creating 
apparatus.  It  has  no  heavy  parts  but  the 
single  wheel  and  its  casings.  The  inventor 
states  that  with  the  power  now  used  on  the 
New  York  Subway  trains  a  Boyes  train  carry- 
ing the  same  number  of  passengers  will  attain 
the  speed  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  an 
hour.  I  recently  asked  an  automobile  manu- 
facturer what,  at  present,  set  the  limit  on  the 
speed  autos.     He  replied,  "The  nerve  of  the 


ROADTOWN  47 

driver."  The  bearing  parts  of  the  monorail 
can  be  made  many  times  the  strength  required 
for  the  speeds  intended  and  thus  reduce  acci- 
dents from  broken  parts  to  a  minimum.  I 
have  asked  a  number  of  engineers  to  give  me 
a  reason  why  the  speed  predictions  of  Boyes 
could  not  be  attained.  One  replied,  "It 's 
never  been  done."  Another  said,  "Municipal 
politics." 

Because  I  have  spoken  in  favor  of  the  Boyes 
Monorail  I  do  not  wish  the  reader  to  infer  that 
the  development  of  the  Roadtown  depends 
upon  the  progress  made  by  this  invention. 
We  have  noiseless  electric  automobiles  to-day 
and  noiseless  bicycles  that  serve  well  to  demon- 
strate the  feasibility  of  building  a  noiseless 
service  for  the  purpose  of  Roadtown  and  such 
a  later  system  will  indeed  probably  be  installed 
in  the  first  demonstration  section.  No  man  of 
a  mechanical  turn  of  mind  will  doubt  for  a 
minute  that  noise  in  transportation  can  be 
eliminated  where  it  is  desirable  to  do  so. 

The  Roadtown  transportation  system  will 
be  in  the  cellar.  This  idea  will  at  first  seem 
strange,  and  many  people  will  suggest  that  it 


48  ROADTOWN 

be  put  above  ground  thinking  thus  to  save 
expense  and  have  the  "view."  I  think  a  little 
explanation  will  show  that  the  basement  is  the 
only  logical  location  for  the  Roadtown  trans- 
portation line. 

If  it  is  above  ground  it  will  have  to  be  fenced 
off  or  elevated  to  prevent  loss  of  life.  If  it  is 
fenced  it  will  keep  people  from  the  land.  If 
it  is  elevated  the  stations  will  be  expensive  and 
an  eyesore.  As  for  the  idea  of  a  view,  we  can 
say  that  the  Roadtown  railroad  is  not  for  sight- 
seeing any  more  than  an  elevator  in  a  hotel. 
If  placed  beside  the  house  line  it  would  destroy 
the  natural  "view"  and  privacy  of  the  home, 
and  the  roof  is  reserved  for  a  better  use. 

The  basement  is  clearly  the  only  logical 
place  to  have  the  monorail  where  it  will  be 
absolutely  convenient  and  yet  free  the  house 
from  the  nuisance  of  living  beside  an  elevated 
railroad  track.  The  expense  of  the  basement, 
where  steam  shovel  and  work  train  are  utilized, 
as  already  explained,  will  be  comparatively 
small,  and  the  house  above  will  provide  a  con- 
tinuous covered  passageway  from  the  door  of 
one's  apartment  to  the  station.     As  for  venti- 


ROADTOWN  49 

lation,  which  is  a  puzzling  problem  in  city  sub- 
ways, it  will  be  solved  by  a  continuous  opening 
made  by  building  the  house  three  or  four  feet 
above  the  ground;  the  Roadtown  trains  will 
therefore  run  in  a  covered  trench  rather  than 
in  a  subway. 

Because  of  the  rail  straddling  plan  the 
Boyes  car  must  be  entered  from  both  sides. 
Three  tracks  will  be  required  and  these  will  be 
arranged  one  beneath  the  other.  The  reason 
for  this  is  obvious:  if  arranged  side  by  side, 
passengers  would  have  to  climb  up  the  height 
of  the  car  and  down  again.  Arranged 
vertically,  they  need  climb  only  up  or  down. 
Because  the  distance  from  rail  level  to  car 
floor  level  is  practically  eliminated  in  the 
Boyes  car,  this  climb  will  be  but  seven  or  eight 
feet  instead  of  twelve  as  with  present  train 
service.  The  upper  track  will  be  for  local 
service.  Passengers  will  walk  from  their 
house  along  a  continuous  platform  or  hallway 
to  the  local  stations,  which  will  be  located  about 
100  yards  apart.  The  object  of  having 
definite  stations  or  stopping  places  is  simply 
one  of  gaining  speed  by  having  the  people  in 


50  ROADTOWN 

groups.  The  platform  will  be  continuous  and 
the  trains  can  be  stopped  at  any  house  desired 
if  there  be  a  good  reason  for  so  doing. 

About  every  five  miles  there  will  be  an 
express  station.  Here  the  people  will  climb 
down  eight  feet,  or  sixteen  if  going  the  oppo- 
site direction,  and  board  a  train  that  is  not 
bothered  with  frequent  stops  and  can  hence 
make  very  high  speed. 

The  following  is  a  sample  specification 
of  Roadtown  train  service  as  submitted  by 
William  H.  Boyes,  using  the  Boyes  Monorail 
System  at  a  speed  of  only  ninety  miles  per 
hour.  Line  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia, 
ninety  miles.  Daily  traveling  population,  one 
to  a  family,  250  per  mile,  11,250  to  go  each 
way.  8,916  per  hour  for  three  rush  hours. 
Speed,  ninety  miles  per  hour;  time  of  round 
trip,  two  hours;  trains  five  minutes  apart; 
stations,  five  miles  apart.  Trains,  twenty- 
four  ;  seating  capacity  per  train,  336 ;  capacity 
of  express  service,  4,032  hourly.  Local  trains 
oscillating  between  express  stations  each  to 
carry  224  passengers  per  hour,  eighteen  re- 
quired. 


ROADTOWN  51 

This  specification  submitted  by  Mr.  Boyes 
gives  a  remarkably  small  equipment  for  the 
traffic  handled  compared  with  present  figures. 
The  chief  difference  is  due  to  the  high  speed. 
There  are  many  who  will  not  believe  that  a 
ninety-mile  schedule  will  be  maintained,  not 
so  many  perhaps  as  would  two  years  ago  have 
refused  to  believe  that  man  could  fly  from 
New  York  to  Philadelphia,  an  account  of  the 
accomplisment  of  which  lies  on  my  desk  as  I 
write.  For  those  to  whom  seeing  is  necessary 
to  believing,  the  speed  above  may  be  cut  in 
half,  which  will  then  be  about  that  in  the  New 
York  Subway.  The  express  trains  will  then 
run  on  a  two-and-a-half -minute  schedule  and 
twice  as  many  will  be  required,  but  the  cost 
will  still  be  much  lower  than  present  day  com- 
muting service  and  efficient  enough  to  make 
the  entire  Roadtown  from  New  York  to  Phila- 
delphia as  accessible  for  commuters  as  is  now 
a  suburban  home  fifteen  miles  from  New  York 
and  a  half  mile  from  the  railroad  station. 

The  single  train  on  the  local  track  will  make 
a  round  trip  between  express  stations  about 
every  fifteen  minutes.     Those  near  the  middle 


52  ROADTOWN 

of  the  section  will  catch  the  train  going  in 
either  direction,  as  the  time  for  the  express  to 
travel  the  distance  of  one  express  station  is 
negligible.  In  each  Roadtown  home  there 
will  be  an  electric  buzzer  which,  when  the 
switch  is  so  turned,  will  announce  the  approach 
of  a  train  in  sufficient  time  to  allow  one  to  get 
to  the  station.  The  buzzer  will  have  two  dis- 
tinct sounds,  one  for  trains  in  either  direction. 

Roadtown  parcels,  such  as  are  not  cared  for 
in  a  small  mechanical  carrier  described  in 
Chapter  VI,  will  be  hauled  on  the  local  trains. 
Roadtown  freight  service  will  be  at  night  on 
the  express  tracks,  the  trains  stopping  at 
stations  located  at  suitable  distances  and 
distinct  from  the  passenger  stations.  At 
these  freight  stations  there  will  be  elevators 
or  inclines  delivering  freight  to  or  receiv- 
ing it  from  the  land  outside,  while  furni- 
ture, etc.,  for  the  houses  will  be  elevated  to  the 
platform  above  and  carried  on  the  very  early 
trips  of  the  local  trains  to  one's  door. 

Wrecks  on  such  a  railroad  system  can  only 
occur  from  actual  breaking  of  some  working 
part,  a  comparatively  rare  cause  of  present 


ROADTOWN  53 

wrecks.  The  local  track  collision  cannot  occur 
as  there  is  only  one  train  in  a  section.  On  the 
two  express  tracks,  "tail-end"  collisions  will  be 
prevented  by  a  block  system  that  turns  off  the 
power  automatically  when  trains  approach 
within  a  certain  distance  of  each  other.  This 
system  is  in  operation  in  the  New  York  Sub- 
ways. 

The  Street  Upon  the  Roof. 

Private  stairs  from  each  home  will  lead 
down  to  the  monorail  platform  and  up  to  the 
roof.  In  the  center  of  the  roof  will  be  a 
promenade  which  will  be  covered,  and  in  the 
winter  enclosed  with  glass  panels  and  steam 
heated.  On  the  outer  edges  of  the  roof  will 
be  a  path  for  bicyclists  and  skaters,  who  will 
use  rubber  tired  roller  skates.  The  monorail, 
which  is  the  business  transportation  system  of 
Roadtown,  will  be  placed  out  of  sight  and  run 
at  high  speed,  but  the  roof  promenade  will  be 
the  "street"  for  recreation  and  pleasure.  In 
winter  the  promenade  will  be  a  continu- 
ous sun  parlor;  in  summer  a  shaded  walk. 
There  will  be   benches  in  alcoves   along  the 


54  ROADTOWN 

way  and  occasional  towers  over  the  prom- 
enade and  tower  effects  along  the  edges  of  the 
roof  beyond  the  cycle  paths  or  some  other 
architectural  effects  to  break  the  monotony. 
These  towers  will  be  used  as  cooperative 
centers,  such  as  stores,  cooking  and  power, 
recreation,  schools,  nurseries,  etc.  The  tower 
effects  are  matters  of  architectural  ingenuity, 
and  many  architects  are  already  interested  in 
finding  ways  to  lend  variety  and  beauty  to  the 
Roadtown  as  they  have  to  our  existing  public 
ways. 

Certainly  no  street  or  boulevard  in  the 
history  of  the  world  was  ever  more  uniquely 
located.  The  splendid  view  to  be  obtained 
from  such  a  promenade  in  a  dust-free  and 
smoke-free  country  can  hardly  be  pictured  to 
a  city  bred  man  or  a  countryman  jogging 
along  the  hedge  and  weed  throttled  country 
road.  The  view  across  the  near  gardens  and 
more  distant  grain  fields,  and  back  over  woods 
and  hills  to  the  dim  line  where  land  meets  sky, 
will  cure  forever  a  score  of  Latin-named 
diseases  which  the  eye  specialist  tells  us  come 
from  gazing  through  the  dust-laden  street  or 


ROADTOWN  55 

across  the  dingy  court  into  our  neighbor's 
kitchen  window. 

It  is  upon  the  roof  that  the  Roadtown  will 
be  upon  dress  parade.  Here  maids  with  their 
lovers  will  stroll  of  evenings  and  matrons  with 
their  baby  carriages  on  Sunday  afternoons. 
It  is  here  that  children  will  have  never  ending 
sport.  Skating  and  cycling  can  have  an 
unprecedented  opportunity  to  develop  for 
health  and  pleasure.  It  is  here  that  Easter 
hats  will  be  shown  and  neighbors'  crops  dis- 
cussed and  new  acquaintances  made  and  local 
pride  developed. 

The  question  naturally  arises  as  to  the  sound 
of  conversation  from  the  roof  reaching  the  liv- 
ing-rooms or  the  sound  from  the  rooms  reach- 
ing the  roof.  The  cement  walls  are  practically 
sound  proof  and  for  sounds  to  be  heard  from 
roof  to  house  or  house  to  house  requires  that  it 
pass  into  the  open  air  and  bend  through  a  180 
degree  angle.  Sound  does  not  travel  in  that 
way  as  one  may  readily  prove  by  trying  to 
shout  around  the  corner  of  a  ledge  of  rock  or 
over  a  stone  building.  With  all  windows  and 
doors  wide  open  in  the  Roadtown  home,  the 


56  ROADTOWN 

only  sound  of  ordinary  magnitude  to  be  heard 
will  be  from  the  singing  of  birds  and  the  play 
of  children  in  front  of  the  window.  The  un- 
canny noise  of  city  streets  and  of  quarrelsome 
neighbors  across  the  air  shaft  will  be  missing. 
People  who  cannot  content  themselves  with 
the  quiet  of  a  Roadtown  home  will  have  to  use 
the  telephone,  electric  music,  roof  promenade 
or  go  to  the  social  center.  Promenaders  can- 
not stare  into  nor  listen  at  their  neighbors' 
windows.  The  Roadtowner's  home  is  his 
castle  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word,  and  more 
private,  notwithstanding  the  close  proximity  to 
neighbors,  and  hence  more  consecrated  to 
family  life  than  any  previous  style  of  dwelling 
known. 

The  Roadtown  will  have  no  streets  because 
it  will  need  none.  As  it  is  built  through  the 
country,  there  will,  of  course,  be  roads  as  well 
as  streets  to  cross.  Here  the  monorail  will  run 
under,  and  the  roof  bridge  over  the  roads.  At 
such  road  crossings  and  such  other  places 
where  roads  are  built  back  into  the  country, 
stables  and  garages  will  be  provided. 

The    natural    desire    to    drive    one's    own 


ROADTOWN  57 

vehicles  up  to  the  door  of  his  own  house  will 
cause  an  occasional  remonstrance  against  the 
plan  at  first,  but  as  people  find  that  there  is  no 
need  of  such  roadways  they  will  come  to  con- 
sider the  Roadtown  road  crossings  as  their 
front  door,  when  viewed  from  the  auto  or 
equestrian's  standpoint,  and  no  more  think  of 
the  necessity  of  a  private  roadway  to  their  own 
house  than  that  of  having  their  auto  sent  up  the 
tenth  story  of  an  apartment  house. 

Those  who  wish  to  pay  a  visit  to  a  Road- 
town  home  will  come  to  the  nearest  point 
where  the  railroad  crosses  the  Roadtown  or  if 
traveling  by  horse  or  auto  where  the  public 
road  crosses  the  Roadtown  and  will  leave  their 
vehicle  in  charge  of  a  caretaker  and  have  their 
name  'phoned  in  as  one  does  at  an  up-to-date 
apartment  house  or  hotel.  If  the  Roadtowner 
is  at  home,  the  caller  will  then  take  the  mono- 
rail or  the  roof  promenade  as  the  distance  or 
his  inclination  dictates,  and  thus  reach  the  door 
of  his  friend's  home. 

Such  a  system  will  give  the  humblest  Road- 
towner the  opportunity  of  the  high  class  apart- 
ment house  dweller  to  say  that  he  is  not  at 


58  ROADTOWN 

home  to  unwelcome  visitors,  and  yet  the  Road- 
town  home  built  on  the  ground  floor  with  its 
windows  looking  out  into  a  private  garden  will 
have  all  the  home-like  simplicity  of  a  cottage, 
and  at  the  same  time  modern  conveniences  and 
luxuries  which  cannot  be  found  in  any  King's 
palace. 


CHAPTER    V 

CIVILIZATION  THROUGH  PIPES  AND  WIRES 

THE  economies  of  a  continuous  house 
under  one  roof  and  of  railroad  and 
steam  shovel,  rather  than  hand  and  dump  cart 
methods,  are  sufficient  to  make  the  line  con- 
struction far  more  economical  than  any  method 
now  in  vogue,  but  even  they  are  greatly  ex- 
ceeded by  the  additional  saving  involved  in  the 
installation  and  operation  of  the  pipes  and 
wires  of  the  Roadtown. 

Witness  the  present  situation.  The  farm- 
er's house  is  alone  in  the  middle  of  his 
farm.  For  every  pipe,  wire  or  rail  utility  with 
which  he  is  supplied,  he  must  have  a  plant  of 
his  own.  If  he  wishes  steam  heat,  he  must  put 
in  a  boiler;  if  he  wishes  electric  lights,  an 
engine  and  dynamo. 

In  practice  the  farmer,  with  the  occasional 
59 


60  ROADTOWN 

exception  of  the  rural  telephone,  is  limited  to 
the  products  of  civilization  that  can  be  hauled 
home  in  a  wagon. 

The  city  man  is  a  little  better  off.  City 
dwellers  are  close  together,  close  enough  that 
one  electric,  gas  or  steam  producing  plant  will 
do  for  many  hundreds  or  thousands  of  families, 
but  by  the  present  plan  which  enables  them  to 
have  these  improvements,  they  pay  not  only 
the  expense  of  periodic  tearing  up  of  the  pave- 
ments and  the  house  foundation,  but  a  far 
greater  price  in  the  loss  of  air,  sunlight  and 
privacy. 

The  Roadtown  has  these  God-given  utili- 
ties of  country  air  and  light  on  two  sides  of  the 
house.  Upon  the  other  two  sides  it  has  blank 
walls,  but  the  examination  of  the  average 
isolated  residence  will  show  that  there  is  little 
to  be  gained  in  light  or  air  by  the  two  extra 
sides  and  much  to  be  lost  in  privacy.  Upon 
the  two  remaining  sides,  i.  e.,  the  top  and 
bottom,  the  Roadtown  house  has  its  sidewalk 
on  the  roof  and  its  transportation  by  rails, 
pipes  and  wires  that  are  now  in  the  city  streets, 
it  has  on  a  far  better  and  economical  plan  in 


ROADTOWN  61 

the  basement,  now  used  principally  to  store 
old  trunks,  rubbish  and  coal. 

Picture  the  installation  of  a  new  pipe  line 
through  a  paved  street.  The  expense  and  the 
unsightliness,  the  danger  to  human  life — and 
this  has  nothing  to  do  with  getting  the  pipes 
into  a  private  house. 

Now  suppose  you  are  a  resident  on  that  line 
and  conclude  a  couple  of  months  later  to  install 
the  utility  in  your  home.  Again  the  pavement 
is  torn  up,  a  gang  of  laborers  spend  several 
days  on  the  job,  and  you  as  consumer  will  pay 
the  bill  either  in  a  lump  or  as  stiff  rates  on  the 
utility  sold.  The  result  of  this  clumsy  system 
has  been  that  pipe  and  wire  utilities  in  the  city 
are  limited  to  those  people  who  use  them  to  a 
sufficient  extent  to  stand  this  criminal  waste 
and  expense. 

Moreover,  in  all  large  cities  the  matter  of 
installing  pipe  or  wire  conveyed  utilities  is  also 
a  question  of  reckoning  with  franchise-selling 
politicians  and  private  monopolists  who  gen- 
erally work  "hand  in  hand." 

Compare  these  conditions,  mechanical  and 
political,  with  the  Roadtown  where  all  pipes 


62  ROADTOWN 

and  wires  will  be  bracketed  in  a  runway  be- 
neath the  floor  of  a  machine-made  house  on 
land  at  farm  prices.  To  put  in  a  new  pipe 
conveyed  utility  will  cost  the  price  of  the 
twenty-one  feet  of  main  and  a  branch  pipe 
leading  to  the  apartment  above  through  suit- 
able openings  made  when  the  building  is  con- 
structed. The  expense  will  be  about  equal  to 
that  of  maintaining  the  red  lanterns  which  are 
now  placed  about  the  torn  up  city  streets. 

As  a  result  of  these  differences  there  will  be 
added  to  the  Roadtown  home — and  I  mean  to 
the  home  of  the  man  of  average  means — a 
number  of  utilities  now  available  only  to  the 
rich,  or  not  available  at  all. 

Beginning  with  the  following  paragraph  I 
will  enumerate  some  of  the  inventions  that  will 
be  available  in  the  Roadtown  home.  I  may 
include  in  this  list  some  inventions  which, 
while  demonstrated  on  a  small  scale,  may  for 
some  reason  not  now  discernible,  develop  an 
objection  or  difficulty  in  its  use.  But  for 
every  such  a  one  that  I  may  here  include, 
there  will  be  several  others  that  science  has 
already  or  will  yet  devise  and  which  can  be 


ROADTOWN  63 

installed  in  Roadtown  as  soon  as  perfected  and 
demonstrated  with  no  more  expense  than  there 
would  be  if  it  were  put  in  when  the  houses 
were  built.     This  feature  alone  is  a  tremen- 
dous argument  in  favor  of  the  Roadtown,  for 
every  previous  form  of  house  construction  once 
finished  is  set  in  its  equipment  and  soon  gets 
behind  the  age  and  must  be  torn  down  to  make 
room  for  the  new.     At  this  time  considerable 
humorous  comment  is  being  made  in  the  news- 
papers over  the  tearing  down  of  a  twenty-two 
story  building  in  Wall  Street  to  make  room 
for  a  forty  story  one.     The  old  one  is  only 
thirteen  years  old.     The  Roadtown  will  always 
be  "modern,"  and  increase  in  efficiency  as  it 
increases  in  length  while  the  separate  building 
is  a  complete  unit  with  its  height  and  utilities 
stationary. 

Water. 

The  water  systems  of  great  cities  are  enor- 
mously expensive,  as  it  is  usually  necessary  to 
build  great  conduits  dozens  and  even  as  much 
as  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  long.  The 
trouble  with  such  cities  is  that  a  very  large 


64  ROADTOWN 

population  must  be  supplied  with  water  from 
a  very  limited  area.  The  Roadtown  with  a 
population  of  about  1,000  to  the  mile  will  be 
able  to  get  its  water  supply  from  suitable 
sources  all  along  the  way.  The  length  of  line 
to  be  supplied  from  one  public  station  will 
not  be  great,  but  the  entire  main  may  be 
opened  so  that  one  station  can  relieve  another 
in  case  of  excessive  use  of  water  at  any  given 
point. 

Sewerage. 

The  sewage  system  of  the  Roadtown  will, 
like  the  water  system,  be  built  in  comparatively 
small  units,  and  will  require  none  of  the  large 
and  expensive  sewers  seen  in  city  systems. 
Wherever  the  Roadtown  crosses  a  natural 
valley  in  the  land  the  sewage  can  be  led  off  to  a 
reasonable  distance  from  the  house  line  in  pipes 
and  used  in  irrigating  non-food  crops.  The 
income  to  be  derived  from  the  use  of  this 
sewage  for  fertilization  and  irrigation  will  be 
a  considerable  source  of  profit  and  wholly 
without  the  expense  attached  to  city  sewage 
disposal  works  because  of  distance  from  the 


ROADTOWN  65 

land  and  the  fact  that  the  point  of  the  city 
sewer  outlet  is  almost  always  below  the  level 
of  land  available  for  such  uses. 

Heating. 

The  Roadtown  heating  system  will  be  of  hot 
water  circulated  by  pumps.  The  heating 
plants  will  be  located  every  two  or  three  miles, 
which,  according  to  the  engineers'  figures  will 
be  more  economical  than  to  have  them  either 
at  greater  or  less  distance.  The  temperature 
will  be  regulated  to  suit  each  and  every  tenant 
by  the  use  of  the  thermostat  with  a  push  button 
regulator  in  each  room  of  every  apartment. 
This  simple,  but  marvelously  useful  device,  is 
now  in  general  use  in  thousands  of  first  class 
hotels. 

Refrigeration. 

The  refrigerating  system  of  Roadtown 
which  will  be  required  for  food  and  drinking 
water  purposes  could  be  turned  into  the  radi- 
ators and  a  circulation  of  cooled  water  or  brine 
pumped  through  the  houses.  I  do  not  say  that 
such  house  cooling  will  be  established,  for  the 


66  ROADTOWN 

Roadtown  house,  through  which  the  breeze  will 
have  a  full  sweep,  and  in  which  the  electrical 
fans  will  be  plentiful,  will  have  little  need  for 
a  system  of  house  cooling,  but  if  the  people  in 
hot  countries  wish  it  and  care  to  pay  for  it, 
eventually  they  can  have  it. 

Drinking  Water. 

The  next  utility  for  the  Roadtown  house 
will  be  that  of  pure,  cool  distilled  water  for 
drinking  purposes,  cooled  only  to  a  healthful 
temperature.  Because  of  the  small  expense 
for  piping,  this  separation  of  the  system  of 
drinking  water  from  that  used  for  bathing  and 
for  spraying  the  lawn  will  mean  that  no 
method  known  to  science  for  purifying  the 
former  need  be  spared. 

In  present  city  life  the  peddling  of  so-called 
"spring  water"  in  bottles,  is  a  farcical  affair, 
which  would  have  about  as  much  chance  to 
survive  in  Roadtown  as  an  independent  oil 
producer  shipping  oil  in  barrels  would  have 
in  competing  with  the  trust's  tank  cars  and 
pipe  lines.  If  the  Roadtown  is  piped  for  re- 
frigeration, cooling  will  be  very  simple.     If 


ROADTOWN  67 

this  is  not  done  the  coolers  may  be  placed  in 
the  basement  and  filled  with  ice  manufactured 
at  the  central  refrigeration  plant  and  dis- 
tributed by  train.  In  either  case,  the  efficiency 
will  be  great  as  compared  with  any  present 
system. 

Bath  and  Toilet. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  every  home  in 
Roadtown  will  be  provided  with  good  bath  and 
toilet  facilities.  Because  of  the  fact  that  the 
house  is  of  cement  and  has  no  lath  and  plaster 
ceiling  to  get  soaked,  shower  baths  will  prob- 
ably be  much  in  vogue  in  Roadtown.  If  at 
any  time  it  proves  desirable  to  give  up  the 
space  for  the  purpose  there  can  be  shower 
baths  installed  in  every  sleeping-room  at  a  cost 
of  only  a  few  dollars  for  each.  The  soap  for 
bath  and  wash  basin  will  probably  be  liquid, 
and  while  there  will  not  be  enough  used  to 
make  it  worth  while  to  pipe  it,  it  can  be  sup- 
plied ten  gallons  at  a  time  by  a  man  who  will 
make  the  rounds  and  fill  the  reservoirs  at  each 
home.  This  is  comparatively  a  small  matter 
and  I  merely  mention  it  to  show  the  extent  to 


68  ROADTOWN 

which  the  natural  cooperation  of  line  house 
building  will  gradually  lead. 

Gas. 

For  light  cooking  and  local  heating  in  the 
Roadtown  home,  to  such  extent  as  is  desirable, 
gas  will  be  used. 

Vacuum. 

During  the  last  few  years  a  great  vacuum 
sweeper  craze  has  swept  the  country.  We  are 
literally  deluged  with  every  type  of  apparatus, 
from  systems  for  installation  in  hotels  and 
office  buildings,  or  wagon  outfits  that  chase 
about  the  street  and  run  a  hose  into  the  parlor 
window,  to  the  little  pop  gun  arrangement 
that  is  worked  by  hand.  The  ease  of  adap- 
tability of  the  best  features  of  vacuum  clean- 
ing systems  to  Roadtown  is  too  apparent  to 
need  comment  further  than  to  say  that  a  small 
pipe,  with  an  opening  at  each  home,  and  a 
suction  fan  every  half  mile,  will  be  sufficient  to 
give  the  best  possible  results. 

A  further  use  of  this  vacuum  may  be  made 
in   connection   with  automatic   movement   of 


ROADTOWN  69 

windows,  doors,  etc.  Compressed  air  is  now 
frequently  used  for  this  purpose  as  in  elevator 
doors  in  office  buildings.  Vacuum  will,  of 
course,  work  equally  well. 

Disinfecting  Gas. 

A  pipe  dream  of  Roadtown  that  is  abso- 
lutely practical,  cheap  and  a  crying  need,  will 
be  gas  for  disinfection. 

Electric  Light. 

Electricity  for  lighting  will,  of  course,  be 
available  in  Roadtown  at  a  fraction  of  the 
present  cost. 

Electric  Power. 

Electricity  will  be  used  for  fans,  vibrators 
for  massage,  shoeshining,  and  other  household 
devices  that  may  demand  it  as  time  rolls  on. 
Besides  this  there  will  be  an  industrial  use  for 
power  which  I  will  discuss  in  a  later  chapter.* 

*  Until   some  cheaper  source  of  power  is  developed  electric 
heating  will  remain  an  expensive  luxury. 


70  ROADTOWN 

Telephones. 

Electric  buttons  and  signals  and  bells  can 
be  used  for  the  "top"  and  "bottom"  doors  of 
the  house,  signaling  to  central  stations  when 
preferable  to  the  telephone.  The  telephone, 
the  cheapest  of  the  pipe  and  wire  group  of  civ- 
ilizing agents,  common  though  it  is,  has  not  yet 
come  into  universal  use.  In  New  York  City- 
alone  there  are  over  three  million  people  who 
have  no  telephones  and  in  the  United  States 
there  are  60,000,000  deprived  of  that  great 
necessity.  In  Roadtown  the  cost  of  installing 
telephones  will  be  practically  the  cost  of  the 
instruments,  switch-boards  and  twenty-one  feet 
of  wire.  If  the  automatic  system  is  used, 
which  is  likely,  in  local  service  between  a  public 
service  center  and  the  houses  they  wait  upon, 
the  cost  will  be  but  those  of  interest  on  installa- 
tion and  cost  of  repairs.  A  telephone  expert 
has  estimated  that  the  system  complete  would 
be  less  than  ten  dollars  per  family,  and  that  the 
expense  of  operation  or  telephone  rent  less 
than  one  dollar  a  year,  net,  per  family,  or  eight 
cents  per  month. 


ROADTOWN  71 

Dictograph. 

At  the  present  date  there  is  in  practical 
operation  a  loud  speaking  telephone  called  the 
dictograph.  If  this  modern  invention  is  in- 
stalled in  the  Roadtown  home,  it  will  be  pos- 
sible by  simply  pressing  a  button  to  talk  over 
the  telephone  while  sitting  in  a  chair  or  lying 
in  bed.  This  instrument  has  been  most  suc- 
cessfully utilized  in  conveying  music,  which,  if 
received  through  a  horn  can  scarcely  be  told 
from  the  first-hand  product.  This  wonderful 
invention,  as  many  other  similar  ones  that  now 
exist,  cannot  be  put  into  practical  use  on  a 
large  and  systematic  scale,  because  of  the 
present  city  construction,  the  conduit  and  other 
trusts. 

Since  the  preceding  paragraph  was  written, 
M.  K.  Turner,  the  inventor  and  proprietor  of 
the  dictograph,  has  donated  the  use  of  all  of 
his  wonderful  patents  to  the  Roadtown,  and 
in  addition  has  offered  to  design  an  entire 
system  of  loud  speaking  telephones  especially 
adapted  to  Roadtown  use,  because  of  the  great 


72  ROADTOWN 

uplifting  influence  he  recognizes  in  its  prin- 
ciples when  put  into  practice. 

This  donation,  together  with  the  house  pour- 
ing scheme  of  Mr.  Edison  and  the  Boyes 
Monorail,  gives  to  Roadtown  fundamental 
patents  on  house  building,  transportation  and 
intelligence  transmission — the  three  great  es- 
sentials of  a  new  civilization. 

Telegraphone. 

The  telegraphone,  or  recording  telephone, 
is  also  a  most  wonderful  invention.  The  teleg- 
raphone records  any  sound  sent  over  a  tele- 
phone by  means  of  magnetic  changes  in  a 
disc  or  wire.  These  steel  disc  records  or  wire 
records  can  then  be  reproduced  any  number  of 
times  with  no  loss  of  distinctness.  As  the 
dictograph  may  be  used  to  give  a  sermon,  lec- 
ture or  piece  of  music  to  any  number  of  peo- 
ple at  one  time,  so  the  telegraphone  may  be 
used  to  record  and  repeat  it  any  number  of 
times. 

I  could  add  other  inventions  to  the  list,  but 
will  not,  for  these  already  given,  though  all 
practical  existing  devices,  will  Le  so  wonderful 


ROADTOWN  73 

in  application  that  I  will  not  extend  the  list  to 
any  less  thoroughly  proven  inventions,  lest  the 
reader  who  can  but  judge  from  the  viewpoint 
of  the  present  imperfect  city  civilization,  con- 
fuse the  Roadtown  which  is  the  plan  grouping 
of  proven  inventions  with  the  dreams  of  novel- 
ists who  revel  in  inventions  yet  to  be. 


CHAPTER    VI 

R0ADT0WN    HOUSEKEEPING 

THOUGH  it  is  true  that  some  work, 
which  in  the  past  rested  heavily  upon  the 
shoulders  of  women,  has  been  taken  into  the 
factory,  notably  the  spinning,  weaving  and 
clothes  making  trades,  and  on  the  farm  the 
making  of  butter,  still  the  bulk  of  labor  of  the 
women  of  the  average  household  comes  in  that 
group  of  washing,  ironing,  dusting,  sweeping, 
scrubbing,  making  beds,  cooking  and  dish- 
washing. This  is  woman's  work  in  the  most 
of  our  homes,  and  a  servant's  work  in  the 
homes  of  the  rich. 

Woman's  Work  not  Specialized, 

Industrial  progress  has  not  yet  applied  to 
this  work  of  women  the  specialization  and 
labor  saving  machinery  that  has  sent  forward 
the  general  work  of  the  world  at  such  a  rapid 

74 


ROADTOWN  75 

pace.  Another  way  of  expressing  the  same 
idea  is  to  say  that  in  at  least  nine-tenths  of  the 
households,  the  woman  is  the  household, 
servant.  If  the  work  be  assigned  to  outsiders, 
then  the  privacy  of  the  family  circle  is  broken 
up  and  the  dearest  ties  of  earth  are  disturbed 
by  intruders.  At  present  there  are  two  ways 
out  of  the  difficulty.  The  way  of  the  rich  is 
the  employment  of  household  servants.  To 
counteract  the  disturbance  of  family  life  an 
elaborate  system  of  servant  etiquette  has  been 
established  by  means  of  which  the  servant  is 
made  to  resemble,  as  much  as  possible,  the 
cookstove  or  the  family  horse.  This  satisfies 
the  family,  but  is  disagreeable  to  the  servant, 
and  incidently  keeps  a  worker  out  of  produc- 
tive effort,  raises  the  cost  of  living  to  every- 
body, and  deprives  her  of  the  most  normal 
expression  of  womanhood — that  of  marrying 
and  coddling  her  own  children. 

The  second  solution  is  for  those  too  poor  to 
employ  servants.  It  consists  in  eulogizing  the 
"homely  virtues"  and  writing  poems  about  the 
duties  of  women  in  the  home  and  artfully  asso- 
ciating the  scouring  of  a  brass  kettle  with  the 


76  ROADTOWN 

instinct  of  motherhood.  This  effort  to  satisfy 
the  women  in  the  home  in  playing  the  personal 
servant  to  the  rest  of  the  family  by  enshrining 
the  dish-rag  and  broom  is  nothing  new  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  Those  who  have  bene- 
fited from  the  work  of  others  have  always  been 
quick  to  quote  scripture  to  keep  the  worker  on 
the  j  ob,  and  as  long  as  there  is  no  other  way  to 
get  the  work  done,  this  plastering  over  of  dirty 
work  with  beautiful  thoughts  is  indeed  a  make- 
shift virtue,  but  one  of  which  we  shall  some 
day  be  thoroughly  ashamed. 

In  the  Roadtown,  this  problem,  old  as  civil- 
ization, will  be  solved,  not  by  bringing  in  out- 
side workers  to  break  up  family  life,  but  by 
sending  most  of  the  present  work  out  of  the 
home  and  simplifying  that  which  must  remain 
until  the  task  becomes  so  light  that  each  mem- 
ber of  the  family  will  perform  his  share  of  the 
housekeeping  just  as  he  now  dresses  himself, 
or  walks  to  catch  the  trolley  car. 

No  Laundry  Work  at  Home. 

The  first  function,  washing  and  ironing,  has 
long  since  been  made  an  industrial  function  by 


ROADTOWN  77 

the  rich  everywhere,  and  also  by  the  middle 
class  in  our  cities.  Farmers'  wives  and  the 
wives  of  the  city  laborers  still  do  home  laundry- 
ing.  In  the  Roadtown,  with  its  perfect  system 
of  transportation,  the  trouble  of  sending  soiled 
clothes  to  the  cooperative  laundry  will  be  very 
simple  as  compared  with  the  present  wasteful 
method  of  city  collection  of  laundry.  The 
service  will  indeed  be  so  cheap  that  I  fancy 
Roadtowners  will  vote  to  add  the  expense  of 
the  laundry  to  the  charge  for  rent,  thus  doing 
away  with  the  cost  of  accounts  and  collections. 
This  would  put  a  premium  upon  cleanliness, 
to  be  sure,  and  might  result  in  a  slight  increase 
of  the  total  expense  since  our  clothes  would 
be  washed  more  often. 

In  connection  with  the  laundry  will  be  a 
pressing  and  cleaning  establishment  which  will 
likewise  be  run  cooperatively.  The  pressing 
machine  now  used  by  clothing  manufacturers 
will  keep  people  looking  spick  and  span  for  a 
mere  trifle. 

How  far  the  Roadtowners  will  carry  the 
idea  of  a  blanket  rate  to  cover  the  cost  for  all 
these  'hinq-s  denends  on  traits  in  human  nature 


78  ROADTOWN 

that  are  pretty  hard  to  anticipate.  We  force 
people  to  cooperate,  to  build  parks  and  statues 
to  beautify  our  cities.  Do  we  want  to  tax 
them  for  a  chance  to  be  well  groomed,  or  do 
we  prefer  to  see  the  other  fellow  slouchy  so 
that  we  will  look  better  by  comparison  ?  I  for 
one,  believe  in  allowing  civic  pride  to  include 
live  citizens  as  well  as  marble  statues  of  the 
dead. 

Dusting  and  Sweeping. 

Dusting  and  sweeping  must  be  done  at 
home,  we  cannot  send  the  house  out,  but  we 
can  pipe  the  house  for  suction  sweeping  and 
discard  forever  the  broom,  clothes  brush  and 
that  arch  nuisance,  the  feather  duster,  which 
is  used  to  chase  the  dust  from  room  to  room 
without  getting  rid  of  it.  Scrubbing  and 
mojjping  will  be  greatly  simplified  by  the 
cement  construction  and  the  convenience  of 
water  and  sewage.  These  periodic  tasks  will 
be  grouped  into  trades,  so  that  they  can,  when 
desirable,  be  given  over  to  professional  cleaners 
as  is  window  washing  in  city  buildings. 


ROADTOWN  79 

Making  Beds  by  Machinery. 

The  care  of  the  beds  is  the  next  item  on  our 
list.  The  Roadtown  sleeping-room  will  in  the 
daytime  have  the  appearance  of  a  sitting-room 
or  library.  One  essential  piece  of  furniture 
will  be  a  couch  or  divan  with  good  springs 
upholstered  with  fire  proof  material.  Plush, 
leather  and  linen  divan  and  chair  covers  will 
be  used  alternately  to  suit  the  seasons  and 
varying  requirements.  The  divan  forms  the 
foundation  of  the  bed.  The  bedding  including 
a  light  pad  or  mattress  will  be  made  about  a 
foot  longer  than  is  customary.  At  the  foot 
this  bedding  and  pad  will  be  fastened  together 
by  a  metal  clasp,  or  "bedding  hanger"  on  the 
order  of  a  trousers-hanger.  In  the  morning 
instead  of  making  up  the  bed — that  is,  care- 
fully folding  up  all  the  germs  and  foul  odors, 
the  bed  will  be  suspended  by  the  hanger  in  an 
adjoining  fresh  air  closet.  By  reversing  the 
action  of  the  rod  supporting  the  bedding,  which 
describes  an  arc  over  the  unfolded  divan,  the 
bedding  is  spread  neatly  in  place — the  bed  is 


80  ROADTOWN 

made.  This  closet  in  which  the  bedding  hangs 
freely  exposed  to  the  air  has  one  side,  or  rather 
edge,  against  the  outside  wall  of  the  building. 
This  wall  space  will  be  formed  of  shutters 
which  admit  of  free  circulation  of  air,  thus  the 
bed  is  aired  every  day  and  all  day.  But  there 
are  certain  species  of  "germs,"  as  every  house- 
keeper can  testify,  that  will  survive  this  fresh 
air  device,  for  them  another  provision  will  be 
made.  This  closet  will  be  piped  for  a  certain 
kind  of  gas  which  will  be  selected  by  the  Road- 
town  biologist.  At  stated  intervals  the  out- 
shutters  will  be  tightly  closed  as  well  as 
door  of  the  closet  and  the  bedding  fumi- 
ed  instead  of  aired.  This  method  can  also 
be  used  to  disinfect  clothing. 

There  will  be  few  rats  or  mice  in  the  Road- 
town  home,  for  there  will  be  little  food  left 
around  to  attract  them,  and  no  places  for  them 
to  gnaw  through  or  build  their  nests.  In  the 
average  city  building  used  for  factory  pur- 
poses, the  damage  from  rats  and  vermin,  I  am 
told,  is  often  over  10  per  cent  of  the  gross 
sales. 


ROADTOWN  81 

Cooperative  Cooking  Practical. 

Cooperative  cooking,  in  spite  of  the  first 
natural  antipathy,  has  gained  considerable 
ground  in  city  life.  We  find  it  in  two  forms, 
the  dining-out  habit  and  the  delicatessen  habit. 
The  first  is  expensive  of  time  and  money,  and 
destroys  the  most  delightful  hours  of  home 
life.  The  second  is  likewise  expensive  and  re- 
sults in  a  diet  consisting  chiefly  of  bread, 
cheese,  cold  meat  and  pickles.  The  weakness 
in  both  systems  is  in  the  matter  of  imperfect 
transportation.  In  the  first  case  the  people 
must  be  taken  to  the  food,  and  hence  out  of  the 
home.  In  the  second,  the  food  must  be 
brought  into  the  home  by  a  system  of  delivery 
that  greatly  increases  expense  and  limits  the 
quality,  quantity,  and  variety  of  the  available 
meal.  The  Roadtown,  built  in  the  one  straight 
horizontal  line,  will  make  possible  the  use  of  a 
mechanical  delivery  system  which  is  not  now 
available  even  for  hotel  service. 

The  mechanical  carrier  will  be  on  the  order 
of  that  used  in  the  Library  of  Congress  as  a 


82  ROADTOWN 

"book  railroad."  It  is  inexpensive,  noiseless, 
and  can  by  means  of  a  "key"  be  set  to  switch 
automatically  at  the  house  for  which  the  "car" 
or  "carrier"  is  intended. 

The  Roadtown  cooking  will  not  be  done  in  a 
single  kitchen,  but  in  a  number  of  large  estab- 
lishments, such  as  bakeries,  creameries,  boiling, 
roasting  establishments,  etc.  The  prepared 
foods  will  then  be  sent  in  suitable  quantities 
to  serving  stations  located  about  half  a  mile 
apart,  and  there  kept  hot  in  the  warming 
closets.  Here  the  frying,  broiling,  and  other 
such  types  of  cooking  will  be  performed  to 
order. 

The  bill-of-fare  will  be  sent  out  by  Road- 
town  mail.  The  people  will  order  by  'phone 
and  the  foods  will  be  on  the  sideboard  in  the 
Roadtown  dining-room  in  less  time  than  it 
takes  to  bring  it  by  the  two-legged  route  from 
Delmonico's  kitchen  to  his  dining-room.  But 
in  the  dining-room  a  difference  arises.  The 
carriers  must  be  opened  and  the  dishes  and 
food  arranged  upon  the  table  by  the  women 
folks — a  homely  virtue  left  that  the  household 
poet  may  not  be  entirely  without  material. 


ROADTOWN  83 

The  usual  meal  will  require  two  carriers,  one 
of  which  will  be  heated,  and  the  other  contain- 
ing butter,  milk,  ices,  etc.,  will  be  chilled. 
Many  changes  of  fashion  will  be  required  in 
the  form  and  material  of  dishes  for  containing 
and  serving  food — changes  that  will  doubtless 
"upset"  the  good  dames  who  have  found  virtue 
in  soup  tureens  that  can  slop  over  but  it  is 
needless  to  add  that  their  Roadtown  daughters 
will  be  more  "upset"  at  the  thought  of  a  return 
to  present  customs. 

At  the  close  of  the  Roadtown  meal,  the 
dishes,  food  remnants  and  soiled  linen,  will  be 
put  into  the  carrier,  and  dropped  down  a  little 
chute  where  they  will  travel  merrily  to  the 
public  dish-washery.  Here  a  few  men  with 
the  aid  of  machinery  will  do  the  work  which 
now  occupies  half  a  hundred  mothers  while 
their  families  adjourn  to  the  library,  music- 
room  or  to  indulge  in  a  nap. 

In  the  Roadtown  household  there  will  be  no 
furnaces  to  tend,  no  ashes  to  haul  out,  and  no 
marketing  to  do.  The  garbage  waste  will  be 
only  the  table  refuse  which  will  be  placed  in  a 
paraffined  paper  receptacle  and  sent  back  with 


84  ROADTOWN 

the  dishes.     A  bag  for  waste  cloth  and  paper 
will  complete  the  waste  disposal  system. 

The  End  of  Household  Drudgery. 

In  such  an  environment  with  the  baby  cared 
for  by  experts  in  the  nursery  or  kindergarten 
only  a  thousand  feet  away,  the  mother  will 
have  time  to  operate  an  electric  sewing, 
knitting,  or  one  of  many  other  automatic  and 
noiseless  machines,  work  in  the  garden,  read, 
visit,  or  attend  the  theater,  lecture  hall  or 
church.  Indeed  the  Roadtown  woman  will  be 
free  to  do  anything  and  everything  she  chooses 
except  home  drudgery. 

The  Roadtown  idea  will  at  first  produce  a 
long  low  wail  from  the  thousands  of  men 
readers  which  will  begin  and  end  with  a  plea 
for  "mother's  cooking."  The  Roadtown  cook- 
shop  is  cooperative,  but  the  dining-room  is  not. 
And  the  cookshop  will  be  there  to  fill  the  need 
of  the  cooperators,  not  to  make  money.  If 
there  is  demand  it  will  have  uncooked  food  to 
send  out  as  well  as  cooked  food.  Nor  will 
there  be  any  law  against  the  bringing  into  one's 
home  the  fruits  of  one's  own  garden,  berry 


ROADTOWN  85 

patch,  and  poultry  yard.  Roadtown  folks  that 
keep  a  cow  can  take  their  choice  between  set- 
ting the  milk  in  the  spring  and  letting  the 
cream  rise  or  sending  the  milk  to  the  creamery 
where  it  is  aerated,  chilled,  pasteurized,  and 
bottled,  and  the  fat  contents  standardized,  and 
thus  sent  back  as  4  per  cent  milk  to  drink 
and  20  per  cent  cream  for  the  strawberries. 
Personally  having  tasted  both  kinds  I  prefer 
the  scientific  product. 

Every  Roadtown  home  will  have  a  boiler  for 
hot  water,  a  chafing  dish  and  as  much  more 
cooking  apparatus  as  may  be  desired.  The 
wealthy  matron  of  to-day  keeps  alive  the  senti- 
ment of  mother's  cooking  by  making  the  tea, 
frosting  the  cake  or  making  the  salad  dressing. 
The  Roadtown  mother  can  do  the  same,  and 
as  much  more  cooking  as  she  likes,  but  once  the 
opportunity  is  given  for  people  to  find  the 
actual  economy  of  cooperation  and  to  see  the 
folly  of  heating  up  a  whole  house  to  do  one 
family's  cooking,  the  amount  of  cooking 
mothers  will  do  will  be  decidedly  limited. 

Sentiments  can  bar  out  progress  for  a  while, 
but  where  there  is  a  great  economical  saving 


86  ROADTOWN 

with  nothing  to  lose  but  sentiment,  economy 
generally  wins.  How  would  you,  Mr.  Home- 
is-sacred-man,  like  to  thresh  or  flail  the  wheat 
by  hand  in  order  that  the  family  might  eat  pies 
made  of  hand  threshed  wheat  as  well  as  to  eat 
mother's  pies  made  of  machine  prepared 
flour? 

This  game  of  jollying  mothers  into  playing 
household  flunkies  by  complimenting  their 
products  is  getting  thin,  and  a  lot  of  mothers 
are  beginning  to  see  through  it. 

The  cooperative  preparation  of  food  will 
have  many  indirect  effects.  A  Roadtown  ten 
miles  in  length  could  well  afford  to  have  its  own 
canning  factory,  cold  storage,  and,  if  the 
trusts  become  too  dictatorial,  also  its  own  pack- 
ing house.  The  Pure  Food  Law  in  Roadtown 
will  be  a  dead-letter,  for  the  buyers  will  be  food 
experts  and  will  have  nothing  to  gain  by  de- 
frauding the  people,  or  helping  to  keep  them  in 
ignorance.  With  a  double  cause  for  watchful- 
ness, economy  and  health,  it  is  hardly  likely  that 
such  a  buyer  would  find  it  worth  while  attempt- 
ing to  go  in  partnership  with  food  adulterators. 
Certainly  the  inducement  to  adulterate  is  much 


ROADTOWN  87 

greater  in  the  world  to-day,  for  every  man 
involved  in  it,  profits  by  the  practice,  the 
consumer  alone,  woefuly  ignorant  of  the  whole 
subject,  is  the  only  dupe. 

Not  only  will  the  Roadtown  buyer  get  pure 
food,  but  he  will  get  all  food  at  wholesale 
rates.  The  frightful  waste,  due  to  the  putting 
up  of  food  in  small  cans,  bottles  and  cartons, 
is  little  appreciated.  I  recently  tested  this 
principle  by  buying  olive  oil.  The  oil  was 
priced  me  at  $1.80  a  gallon,  but  the  oil  I 
secured  in  fifty  cent  bottles  I  found  cost  me 
$7.00  a  gallon.  Cotton  seed  oil  was  priced  at 
sixty  cents  a  gallon.  I  purchased  a  five-cent 
bottle  and  found  that  I  had  paid  at  the  rate  of 
$2.25  a  gallon.  These  are  indisputable  facts 
and  they  could  be  multiplied  indefinitely.  In 
barrel  or  car  lots  the  above  gallon  prices  would 
be  greatly  reduced. 

All  Roadtown  foods  can  be  bought  in  bulk 
direct  from  the  makers  at  makers'  rates.  The 
vegetables  will  be  crisp  and  fresh  from  the 
Roadtown  gardens.  The  profits  of  the  mid- 
dlemen, of  retailers,  of  adulterators  and  adver- 
tisers, the  cost  of  bottles  and  cans,  of  delivery 


88  ROADTOWN 

boys  and  bad  grocery  bills  will  certainly  be 
eliminated  with  .  ne  fell  swoop.  It  will  reduce 
the  cost  of  living,  mark  you,  at  such  a  rate  that 
the  unsophisticated  will  confuse  a  Roadtown 
meal  with  a  charitable  soup  kitchen.  But  if 
you  don't  believe  this,  write  to  your  country 
cousins  and  find  out  just  what  is  the  producer's 
price  on  the  material  out  of  which  a  meal  is 
made. 


CHAPTER    VII 

THE  SERVANT  PROBLEM  IN  ROADTOWN 

THERE  will  be  no  servant  problem  in 
Roadtown,  as  there  will  be  no  need  for 
servants. 


89 


CHAPTER    VIII 

ROADTOWN  AGRICULTURE, 

MARKET  gardens  near  our  cities  are 
worth  several  hundreds  of  dollars  per 
acre.  But  there  are  millions  of  acres  of  land 
more  fertile  than  a  Brooklyn  market  garden 
that  cannot  be  used  because  there  is  no  way  to 
get  fertilizer  to  it  or  products  away.  Trans- 
portation is  more  important  to  land  values 
than  fertility. 

A  modern  city  of  a  hundred  thousand  in- 
habitants is  about  six  miles  in  diameter,  within 
"an  air  line"  mile  of  the  edge  of  that  city  will 
be  about  twenty  square  miles  of  land,  but  this 
land  will  average  three  and  one  half  miles  from 
the  markets  which  are  usually  clustered  in  the 
center  of  the  city,  but  if  the  street  system  is 
of  the  checker-board  type,  the  edge  of  the  city 
between  the  compass  points  will  be  five  miles 
by  street  from  the  markets. 

90 


ROADTOWN  91 

A  Roadtown  with  a  hundred  thousand  in- 
habitants will  have  within  a  mile  of  its  house 
line  "edge,"  or  "center,"  two  hundred  square 
miles  of  land  area,  ten  times  as  much  as  in  the 
above  case,  and  this  land  will  average  but  half 
a  mile  from  the  market  to  which  the  gardener 
must  needs  transport  his  produce,  which  is  only 
one-tenth  the  distance  under  the  present  day 
conditions. 

Another  advantage  of  Roadtown  for  inten- 
sive agricultural  development  is  that,  because 
of  the  numerous  other  functions  that  transpor- 
tation is  to  serve,  Roadtown  agriculture  has  a 
perfected  system  of  transportation  immedi- 
ately at  its  service  to  say  nothing  of  an  im- 
mense consuming  population  on  the  line. 

The  first  impression  of  a  casual  reader  when 
Roadtown  agriculture  is  mentioned,  will  be 
that  reference  is  made  to  the  play-farming, 
chrysanthemum  and  chicken  breeding  indulged 
in  by  suburbanites.  On  the  contrary,  though 
suburbanites  living  in  Roadtown  will  un- 
doubtedly play  at  farming  much  to  their  phys- 
ical and  mental  betterment,  we  are  here 
speaking  of  the  agriculture  that  will  be  the 


92  ROADTOWN 

leading  industry  of  the  fully  developed  Road- 
town. 

The  trouble  in  grasping  the  possibilities  of 
Roadtown  agriculture  comes  from  the  diffi- 
culty of  renouncing  our  old  viewpoint.  The 
typical  farmer  with  his  house  in  the  middle  of  a 
quarter  section  of  land,  half  of  which  is  fallow, 
and  on  the  other  half  of  which  he  carelessly 
grows  food  for  live  stock  of  which  only  6  per 
cent  of  the  nutriment  is  recovered  in  the  form 
of  meat,  will  be  inclined  to  make  light  of  the 
idea  of  farm  houses  being  built  touching  each 
other.  On  the  other  hand  the  city  dweller,  es- 
pecially of  the  older  Eastern  cities,  which  were 
located  chiefly  in  reference  to  navigation  and 
are  more  likely  to  be  surrounded  with  water, 
6wamp,  rock  and  sand  than  by  soil,  find  that 
when  the  little  remaining  land  has  paid  toll  to 
railroad  and  coal  yards,  millionaire  villas,  and 
dear  parks  and  land  held  by  speculators,  who 
discourage  its  agricultural  improvements,  there 
is  little  remaining  to  give  one  the  picture  of  the 
close  proximity  of  the  consumer  and  the  food 
supply. 

In  spite  of  the  previous  bias  of  these  two 


ROADTOWN  93 

viewpoints,  those  familiar  with  the  possibilities 
of  intelligent  agriculture  will  see  nothing 
strange  in  the  prediction  that  the  farmer  of  the 
future  will  live  next  door  to  the  "city"  con- 
sumer of  his  wares. 

Sufficient  Land  to  Support  Population. 

In  the  first  place,  the  locations  of  Roadtown 
will  be  through  districts  where  there  is  little 
loss  through  uncultivatable  soil.  With  twen- 
ty-one foot  houses,  there  would  be  almost  two 
and  one-half  acres  per  family  for  each  mile  one 
goes  back  from  the  Roadtown  line.  Thus 
within  a  mile  (counting  both  sides)  of  the 
house  line  will  be  five  acres  per  family.  But 
in  no  section  of  the  Roadtown  will  all  the 
families  be  engaged  in  agriculture.  In  typic- 
ally agricultural  sections  of  the  country  to-day 
about  one-third  of  the  population  live  in  vil- 
lages and  towns.  This  population  is  composed 
of  retired  farmers,  traders  and  professional 
men  who  serve  the  farm  population.  In  Road- 
town civilization  this  population  would  live  in 
Roadtown  lines.  Near  cities  the  commuting 
population  and  everywhere  the  manufacturing 


04  ROADTOWN 

population  who  are  only  engaged  in  agricul- 
ture on  a  small  scale,  or  not  at  all,  will  release 
more  land  for  the  Roadtown  farmer.  If  the 
proportion  of  agriculture  to  other  enterprises 
is  the  same  as  in  the  country  at  large,  the 
area  available  to  the  support  of  an  agricultural 
family  within  a  mile  of  Roadtown  will  be  about 
twelve  acres. 

But  we  have  limited  our  calculation  to  land 
within  a  mile  of  the  house  line — why?  Evi- 
dently for  argument's  sake  only,  for  there  is  no 
other  reason.  In  the  country  districts  children 
frequently  walk  two  or  two  and  a  half  miles  to 
school.  The  average  distance  from  the  post 
office  is  three  or  four  miles.  The  average  haul 
to  the  railroad,  five  to  seven.  The  average  dis- 
tance to  the  other  good  things  of  civilization 
is  so  great  that  the  farmer  doesn't  go  at  all, 
he  is  often  referred  to  as  a  "Hayseed,"  un- 
sophisticated, civilized  to  the  extent  of  the  civ- 
ilization that  can  be  shipped  by  rail  and  be 
hauled  home  in  a  wagon.  The  Roadtown  will 
pour  into  the  farm  home  all  the  luxuries  and 
refreshments  of  civilization  at  its  best.  In 
return  it  brings  him  a  new  problem  in  the 


ROADTOWN  95 

relative  location  of  his  home  to  the  land  he 
cultivates.  The  result  will  be  a  wonderful  re- 
arrangement of  the  whole  scheme  of  agricul- 
ture. The  land,  whether  owned  by  private 
individuals,  the  Roadtown  corporation  or  the 
Federal  government,  will  be  cut  up  into  plots, 
larger  and  larger  in  size  as  the  distance  from 
the  Roadtown  increases. 

Next  to  the  house  on  both  sides  will  be  plots 
or  gardens  about  the  width  of  the  house,  and 
probably  partitioned  from  the  neighbor's  by 
trellises  of  vines  or  hedges  of  shrubbery. 
These  plots  will  be  of  sufficient  depth  to  give 
ample  privacy  to  one's  doors  and  windows. 
These  front  yards — there  are  no  back  yards  or 
back  alleys  in  Roadtown — are  but  the  outdoor 
part  of  private  homes,  and  will  perhaps  be 
devoted  to  shade  trees  and  lawn  on  one  side, 
and  to  garden  stuff  on  the  other.  Though 
these  yards  in  Roadtown  etiquette  will  be 
strictly  private  as  far  as  an  outsider's  presence 
is  concerned,  they  will  still  be  within  easy  view 
of  promenaders  on  the  roof,  and  for  the  same 
reason  one  is  not  allowed  to  dump  rubbish  on 
the  front  stoop  in  the  city,  the  Roadtown  yard 


96  ROADTOWN 

will  be  under  the  general  oversight  and  super- 
vision of  the  Roadtown  landscape  gardener. 

Beyond  the  private  gardens  will  be  vege- 
table gardens,  then  chicken  yards,  greenhouses 
or  pigeon  flies.  Beyond  these  in  larger  plots 
will  be  berry  patches  and  coarser  vegetables, 
and  then  orchards  and  dairy  barns  and  pas- 
tures, and  farther  still,  grain  fields,  and  beyond 
that,  forests. 

The  distance  back  which  land  will  eventually 
be  tilled  by  farmers  living  in  the  Roadtown,  is 
a  matter  on  which  I  hesitate  to  express  my 
opinion  for  fear  it  will  discredit  the  worth  of 
my  judgment  in  the  minds  of  those  who  have 
given  the  matter  no  thought,  but  I  think  I 
can  carry  the  points  by  examples:  Imagine 
yourself  to  be  a  farmer  of  the  future,  and 
accustomed  to  the  luxury  of  civilization;  sup- 
pose you  wish  to  raise  flax  as  a  main  crop,  and 
breed  pigeons  and  grow  dew  berries  as  side 
issues.  The  pigeons  and  berries  you  could 
have  at  a  few  minutes'  walk  from  your  Road- 
town home.  The  flax  would  require  your  at- 
tention, plowing  and  seeding  a  couple  of  weeks 
in  the  spring,  and  harvesting  again  a  week  or 


ROADTOWN  97 

so  in  the  summer.  Would  you  prefer  to  go 
five  miles  to  that  field  every  day  for  fifteen 
or  twenty  days,  or  even  take  a  tent  with  you 
and  go  twenty  miles  and  camp  there,  and  for 
the  rest  of  the  year  enjoy  the  cooperative  and 
waste  eliminating  features  of  the  Roadtown 
home  life,  or  would  you  live  in  a  frame  house  on 
the  land  and  wash  your  face  in  cold  water  and 
get  up  winter  mornings  to  start  a  fire  and 
drink  impure  water  from  a  polluted  well  and 
make  your  wife  a  kitchen  scullion,  isolated  and 
lonely,  and  send  your  children  two  miles 
through  the  storm  to  an  inefficient  country 
school  ? 

Two  of  the  most  immediate  advantages  of 
the  Roadtown  for  agriculture  are  heat  and 
water  for  lawns,  greenhouses  and  gardens. 
How  far  this  water  service  can  be  extended 
from  the  Roadtown  main  will  of  course  depend 
upon  the  nature  of  the  supply.  But  it  has 
been  abundantly  proven  that  water  for  irriga- 
tion, even  in  the  most  moist  sections  of  the 
United  States,  was  a  wonderfully  profitable 
investment.  Sewage  will  find  a  special  use  as 
fertilizer  as  before  mentioned,  and  the  Road- 


98  ROADTOWN 

town  garbage  disposal  works  will  doubtlessly 
have  a  residue  for  the  land. 

Horse  manure  as  a  fertilizer  is  gradually 
vanishing  from  industrial  life,  and  the  Road- 
town  will  eventually  depend  upon  the  chemical 
fertilizers,  "green  manure"  crops,  and  from  the 
animals  upon  the  land  for  fertilizer. 

The  distribution  of  fertilizer  as  well  as  the 
receipt  of  heavy  freight,  will  require  a  freight 
station  located  about  every  quarter  or  half 
mile.  The  opening  of  the  ground  for  access 
to  the  tracks  will  disturb  a  yard  or  two  which 
will  lessen  the  rental  value  of  the  house  above, 
just  as  the  rental  value  of  thousands  of  city 
houses  have  been  diminished  by  the  presence 
of  elevated  roads.  In  practice  such  locations 
in  the  house  line  will  doubtless  be  used  for 
some  of  the  numerous  non-residential  purposes 
for  which  room  will  be  occasionally  planned  to 
suit  the  local  conditions. 

Transportation  will  enable  the  better  devel- 
opment of  cooperative  features,  such  as  cream- 
eries, hatcheries  and  nurseries  that  now  thrive 
under  adverse  conditions  and  will  doubtlessly 


ROADTOWN  99 

encourage  the  development  of  others  not  now 
anticipated. 

Elimination  of  the  Middleman. 

The  markets  of  Roadtown  can  hardly  be 
compared  to  present  conditions  at  all.  Where 
the  farmers  of  to-day  go  to  the  railroad  station 
with  their  produce,  Roadtown  farmers  will 
leave  theirs  in  the  warehouse  of  the  food  de- 
partment. The  25  to  75  per  cent  of  the  price 
that  now  melts  away  between  the  producer 
and  consumer  will  of  necessity  be  divided  be- 
tween the  producer  and  the  consumer. 

The  Roadtown,  either  through  its  central 
cooperation  or  in  the  form  of  individual 
citizens  will  be  a  great  consuming  market  for 
the  Roadtown  farmer.  Certain  products, 
however,  for  which  the  locality  is  especially 
adapted  must  necessarily  be  sold  outside  the 
Roadtown.  For  such,  salesmanship  coopera- 
tion as  is  now  carried  on  in  the  Ontario  and 
California  fruit  belts  and  in  the  creameries  of 
the  Middle  West  and  trucking  districts  of  the 
South  will  be  brought  into  play,  and  with  the 


100  ROADTOWN 

Roadtown  transportation  system  and  storage 
warehouses  its  farmers  will  surely  not  fail 
where  the  former  have  succeeded. 

Cooperative  Ownership  of  Farm  Tools. 

Well  managed  cooperation  will  also  find 
another  field  in  Roadtown  agriculture  in  the 
form  of  cooperatively  owned  tools.  I  fully 
believe  in  the  electric  plow,  for  instance;  an 
invention  which  the  writer  worked  out  some 
years  ago  in  the  form  of  a  flexible  cable  which 
would  unwind  from  a  cylinder  on  the  plow  as 
the  plow  moves  out  from  the  electric  plug,  and 
will  rewind  as  it  returns.  Such  a  device  as  I 
propose  is  entirely  practicable  and  has  simply 
failed  to  be  developed  because  of  lack  of  cheap 
electric  power  near  the  land  to  be  cultivated; 
however,  the  old  reliable  horse  will  be  used 
back  from  the  Roadtown  line  and  as  near  to  it 
as  he  proves  economical  and  desirable. 

The  use  of  electricity  for  agricultural  power, 
is  a  part  of  the  future  programme  of  the  world 
as  the  land  becomes  more  thickly  settled  and  as 
land  to  raise  horse  food  gradually  diminishes. 
How  fast  the  change  will  come  will  depend 


ROADTOWN  101 

upon  how  rapidly  the  storage  battery  and  the 
means  of  conducting  electric  power  are  cheap- 
ened through  invention.  At  present  the  elec- 
trical truck  competes  successfully  with  the 
gasoline  truck,  and  Edison  storage  batteries 
are  now  replacing  the  horse  cars  in  New  York 
streets  where  the  traffic  does  not  warrant  the 
regular  electric  car.  I  believe  the  most 
economical  agricultural  conveyances  in  Road- 
town  will  in  a  short  time,  if  not  from  the  out- 
set, be  light  electrical  storage  wagons  and  that 
the  use  of  such  vehicles  as  well  as  electrical 
cultivating  instruments  will  gradually  extend 
back  from  the  Roadtown  as  intensive  agricul- 
ture develops  and  electric  power  is  cheapened. 


CHAPTER  IX 

INDUSTRY   RETURNS   TO   THE   HOME 

AN  influential  factor  in  the  development 
of  manufacturing  was  the  invention  of 
steam  power.  The  industries  that  use  ma- 
chines were  forced  out  of  the  homes  and  into 
the  factories.  There  was  no  alternative.  The 
steam  driven  machines  produced  goods  so 
cheaply  that  the  hand  power,  or  home  machine 
could  not  earn  its  owner  a  livelihood.  Thus 
the  factory  system  developed,  partly  because 
of  the  mechanical  necessity  of  concentration 
where  the  power  from  one  engine  could  by  the 
use  of  shafts  and  belts  be  made  to  run  a  great 
number  of  machines,  and  partly  because  of  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  man  with  the  most 
money  to  acquire  possession  of  the  factory  and 
have  others  work  for  him. 

Later  the  invention  and  perfection  of  the 
electric  generator  and  motor  made  possible 

102 


ROADTOWN  103 

the  distribution  of  power  and  the  machine, 
with  its  motor  attached,  again  became  feasible 
for  individual  ownership.  Difficulties,  how- 
ever, exist.  These  difficulties  are  the  present 
capitalistic  ownership  of  the  material  and 
machines,  a  lack  of  properly  organized  co- 
operatively conducted  sources  of  power, 
present  land  ownership,  house  arrangement, 
and  of  getting  this  power  to  the  worker;  and 
what  is  of  much  more  moment,  the  complete 
possession  by  capitalistic  interests  of  the  entire 
system  of  trade  or  distribution  from  the  great 
railway  combination  to  the  retail  shop,  through 
which  the  individual  worker  must  market  his 
products. 

Wage-slavery  Doomed. 

The  ideal — and  as  I  believe — an  attainable 
ideal  in  a  large  number  of  Roadtown  manu- 
facturing industries  is  cooperation  in  the  use 
of  land,  machines,  power  supply  and  transpor- 
tation of  products,  and  individualism  in  the 
actual  operation  of  the  machines  and  working 
the  land.  This  will  forever  solve  the  labor 
question  by  abolishing  the  wage-system.     Let 


104  ROADTOWN 

us  look  at  the  details  as  they  will  be  worked 
out  in  the  Roadtown. 

The  first  essential  in  such  a  system  of  co- 
operative individual  producers  is  power.  For 
this  the  Roadtown  will  have  to  compete  in  the 
markets  of  the  world. 

Roadtown  will  possess  great  advantages  in 
this  respect  where  it  passes  water  power  and 
coal  fields  and  can  buy  them.  Roadtown 
power  plants,  cooperative  stores  and  cooking 
plants,  will  be  located  where  railroads,  canals 
or  rivers  cross  the  Roadtown,  when  practicable, 
to  save  the  double  handling  and  freight  on  coal. 
Otherwise  the  coal  will  be  loaded  into  Road- 
town cars  by  steam  shovel  and  hauled  at 
night  to  the  power  houses  where  the  monorail 
coal  cars  will  be  dumped  directly  into  the 
stoker  reservoirs.  The  same  heat  will  be  used 
for  generating  power,  heating  the  building, 
cooking  the  food  and  for  whatever  other  pur- 
pose heat  is  required  and  the  chimneys  of 
Roadtown  will  be  miles  apart.  There  will  be 
no  wagon  haulage  of  fuel  in  Roadtown  life. 
Other  sources  of  power,  such  as  water,  wind 


ROADTOWN  105 

or  waves,  when  developed  will  become  avail- 
able for  the  Roadtown. 

The  transmission  of  Roadtown  power  will 
involve  none  of  the  losses  from  which  exposed 
transmission  systems  suffer  because  of  the 
weather.  The  actual  cost  per  horse  power 
used  will  be  far  less  than  in  present  city  dis- 
tribution. 

A  Work  Room  in  Every  Home. 

Every  room  in  Roadtown  will  be  wired  for 
light  and  power,  but  the  general  building  plan 
will  presume  that  all  regular  industrial  opera- 
tions are  to  be  conducted  in  a  room  on  the 
lower  floor  of  the  house  which  will  be  equipped 
with  power  sockets  and  bolt  plates  in  the  floor 
and  a  non-vibrating  foundation  installed  for 
machines.  This  room  will  be  located  where  it 
will  have  ready  access  to  the  transportation 
lines,  probably  by  a  trap  through  the  floor 
through  which  a  case  of  goods  can  be  dropped 
to  a  position  where  it  can  be  automatically 
swung  aboard  a  slowly  moving  "pick-up"  car 
at  night,  something  after  the  manner  a  mail- 


106  ROADTOWN 

bag  is  now  snatched  from  a  post  beside  the 
railway  track. 

This  work  room  will  be  separated  from  the 
rest  of  the  house  by  sound-proof  walls.  Of 
course  no  room  can  be  made  absolutely  sound 
proof,  for  where  fresh  air  goes  sound  goes  also. 
Very  noisy  industries  as  well  as  those  that  deal 
in  bulky  or  malodorous  substances  must  of 
necessity  be  out  of  and  at  a  safe  distance  from 
the  resident  portion  of  Roadtown.  The 
Roadtown  work  room,  like  the  cooperative 
cook  shop,  though  it  is  there  to  be  used  and  will 
be  equipped  for  a  work  room,  yet  its  use  as 
such  is  not  obligatory.  The  power  socket  may 
be  plugged,  a  rug  thrown  over  the  bolt  plates 
and  the  work  room  used  for  a  children's  play- 
room, a  sun  parlor,  a  palm  garden,  or  a  living- 
room.  It  is  rented  with  the  house,  equipped 
to  receive  suitable  machines,  but  if  the  tenants 
have  other  uses  for  their  time,  it  is  their  affair. 

The  following  industries  will  come  early  to 
the  Roadtown:  clothing  manufactures,  knit- 
ting, lace  and  needle  work,  millinery,  artificial 
flowers  and  other  decorative  work,  including 


ROADTOWN  107 

all  art  and  the  so-called  art  crafts,  jewelry, 
toilet  articles  and  small  household  notions  of 
all  sorts;  wood  and  cold  metal  workings,  toys, 
hats,  gloves,  shoes,  book-binding,  and  many 
similar  types  of  light  manufacturing. 

The  Roadtown  corporation  will  have  ma- 
chines for  suitable  Roadtown  industries  made 
of  certain  standard  sizes  to  fit  the  workroom 
described.  These  machines  will  be  for  sale 
or  to  rent  to  the  tenant.  Under  the  old  system 
of  industry,  men,  constantly  fraught  with  the 
fear  of  losing  their  jobs,  are  always  anxious  to 
buy  and  own  the  tools  of  production.  In 
Roadtown  practice  there  will  be  nothing  to 
gain  by  private  ownership  over  publicly  owned 
machines.  The  corporation  will  charge  just 
enough  rental  to  maintain  and  repair  the  ma- 
chinery and  replace  with  new  ones  when  the 
old  are  out  of  commission.  The  operator  of 
the  machine  will  find  it  more  profitable  to 
invest  his  savings  in  the  bonds  of  the  corpora- 
tion than  to  make  his  own  repairs  or  to  replace 
his    own    machines.     Another    advantage    of 


108  ROADTOWN 

renting  your  machine  is  the  option  you  have  at 
all  times,  that  of  exchanging  it  for  some  other 
kind  of  machine. 

Whether  the  factory  is  brought  into  the 
home,  or  the  man  induced  to  go  to  the  factory 
will,  of  course,  depend  upon  the  nature  of  his 
work.  Sometimes  it  will  be  cheaper  to  move 
the  product,  sometimes  cheaper  to  move  the 
man.  In  either  case  the  perfected  system  of 
transportation  is  of  equal  importance. 

The  selling  of  farm  products  cooperatively 
is  practical,  as  is  being  abundantly  proven  in 
the  United  States  and  to  a  greater  extent 
abroad.  There  is  no  valid  argument  that  can 
be  put  up  against  cooperative  buying  of  the 
raw  material  and  selling  of  the  finished 
product  of  the  Roadtown  workers.  Such  co- 
operative buying  and  selling  should  not  for  a 
moment  be  classed  with  the  graft  tempting 
work  of  the  municipal  or  government  buyer. 
In  the  case  of  the  government  the  money  which 
is  used  to  buy  cavalry  horses,  for  instance,  is 
raised  by  revenues  upon  diamonds  or  cigars. 
There  is  here  no  relation  whatsoever  between 
the  man  who  pays  the  taxes  and  the  buyer  of 


ROADTOWN  109 

the  goods.  In  cooperative  buying  the  con- 
nection between  the  man  who  pays  and  the 
price  that  is  paid  will  be  close  indeed. 
The  buyer  of  leather  for  Roadtown  glove 
makers  would  be  held  even  more  closely 
responsible  for  honest  buying  by  the  consumers 
of  the  leather  than  by  the  stockholders  of  a 
present  corporate  glove  factory,  for  in  the  cor- 
poration factory  there  is  a  chance  to  hide  poor 
buying  behind  good  selling  in  the  final  report 
to  the  stockholders.  Every  move  of  the  buyer 
and  seller  of  Roadtown  workers  is  then  and 
there  made  known  to  the  Roadtown  workman 
or  group  of  workmen  who  has  the  immediate 
right  to  recall  the  blundering  representative. 
The  trouble  with  government  officials  is  that 
they  are  too  far  removed  from  the  people  who 
supply  the  money  which  they  spend.  In 
Roadtown  that  connection  will  be  close  and 
quick  in  action.  It  will  be  corporate  industry 
with  interest  to  small  or  large  investors,  but 
control  and  profits  for  and  by  the  workers. 

The  bondholders  will  have  an  ever  vigilant 
and  directly  interested  army  of  workers  who 
must  of  necessity  safeguard  their  mutual  wel- 


110  ROADTOWN 

fare.  The  worker  cannot  avoid  this  service  to 
the  bondholder,  hence  he  is  the  best  protected 
bondholder  in  all  the  world.  I  do  not  here 
refer  to  values;  that  is  covered  elsewhere. 

A  New  Type  of  Factory. 

I  believe  there  will  develop  in  Roadtown  a 
form  of  factory  that  is  intermediate  between 
the  large  privately  owned  factory  as  it  exists 
to-day  and  the  individual  work  room  of  Road- 
town.  I  refer  to  the  small  cooperative 
factory,  organized  by  a  band  of  workers  whose 
separate  operations  are  needed  to  complete  a 
single  article.  For  illustration,  suppose  a 
group  of  employes  of  a  shoe  factory  are  dis- 
satisfied. Instead  of  going  on  a  strike  they 
would  organize  a  cooperative  Roadtown  Asso- 
ciation and  move  into  Roadtown.  They  could 
arrange  for  houses  adjoining  and  throw  their 
individual  work  room  into  a  continuous  work 
room  large  enough  to  accommodate  them. 
They  could  elect  their  own  foreman  and  decide 
the  proportion  of  profits  to  go  to  different 
grades  of  work  and  embody  these  conditions  in 
their  charter.     These  inner  cooperators  would 


ROADTOWN  ill 

buy  and  sell  through  the  central  organization 
of  the  Roadtown,  as  will  the  individual 
workers.  Here  we  will  have  the  mechanical 
saving  of  the  combination  of  the  several  opera- 
tions— the  commercial  saving  of  centralized 
buying  and  selling,  and  the  profits  going  to 
the  workers,  not  the  least  of  which  would  be  the 
satisfaction  of  independence. 

Once  Roadtown  becomes  an  established  fact, 
single  workers,  little  groups  of  workers,  and 
whole  armies  of  workers  will  be  seen  leaving 
the  old  system  for  the  new.  It  will  be  a  strike 
for  all  time,  a  strike  from  which  the  hiring  of 
strike  breakers  will  be  an  empty  retaliation,  for 
the  Roadtown  worker  will  not  only  work  better 
but  his  products  will  be  less  destroyed  in  the 
mill  of  competitive  selling — he  can  undersell 
the  strike  breaker,  being  employer,  and  because 
the  food  and  house  and  things  he  buys  of  the 
other  workers  will  cost  him  less  and  serve  him 
better;  the  workman  who  joins  this  final  gen- 
eral strike  can  work  and  live  better,  yet 
cheaper,  than  his  successor  in  the  old  factories. 
It  is  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  barbarous 
so-called  "factory  system" — and  the  end  is  that 


112  ROADTOWN 

each  work  will  be  performed  in  a  way  that  is 
most  economical  to  society  as  a  whole. 

A  Special  Message  to  Women. 

The  Roadtown  has  a  message  not  only  for 
men,  but  for  women,  and  most  especially  for 
young  unmarried  women  who  are  looking  for- 
ward to  the  time  when  they  can  fulfill  their 
highest  mission  on  earth,  that  of  establishing  a 
home  and  raising  a  family.  You  need  not  put 
off  the  wedding  any  longer  than  the  time  when 
you  can  pay  a  couple  of  months'  rent  on  a 
Roadtown  home,  a  deposit  on  a  machine, 
enough  to  buy  raw  material  to  keep  you  and 
the  machine  busy  for  a  couple  of  weeks  and 
enough  seed  to  plant  the  garden.  If  "John" 
has  a  position  he  can  retain  it  and  commute 
without  leaving  you  to  stare  out  the  window  of 
a  city  apartment  with  nothing  to  do  all  day  or 
frightened  and  lonely  in  an  isolated  farm 
house.  If  he  hasn't  a  job  he  may  run  a  ma- 
chine and  work  the  garden  also.  If  he  is  good 
to  you,  you  will  be  happy,  and  he  is  apt  to  be, 
for  he  knows  you  are  not  dependent  upon  him 
for  a  living  now  that  you  are  freed  from  house- 


ROADTOWN  113 

hold  drudgery  and  can  earn  as  much  as  he. 
The  Roadtown  will  enable  you  to  marry  the 
man  of  your  choice  regardless  of  his  ability  to 
thrive  in  the  present  unfair  struggle  for  a  mar- 
riage portion  and  enable  you  at  all  times  to 
free  yourself  from  him  on  account  of  your 
economic  independence,  if  he  proves  to  be  the 
wrong  man. 

The  saving  in  cooperative  buying  and  selling 
is  going  to  be  the  means  of  throwing  many 
men  out  of  employment,  just  as  has  been  the 
case  with  the  inventions  of  all  labor  saving 
machinery  and  methods.  When  a  man  in 
middle  life  has  to  fill  a  new  occupation  it  is 
indeed  a  serious  matter,  but  one  against  which 
it  is  useless  to  fight.  If  a  man  had  been  sent 
down  the  track  swinging  a  lantern  to  warn  an 
approaching  train  of  a  broken  rail,  we  would 
hardly  countenance  the  holding  up  of  traffic 
after  the  rail  was  repaired,  because  the  man 
wished  to  continue  swinging  the  lantern.  The 
Roadtown  makes  no  apologies  to  the  workers 
whose  services  it  will  render  useless.  When 
we  get  well,  we  dismiss  the  doctor.  It  is  said 
that  some  doctors  keep  us  sick  to  keep  their 


114  ROADTOWN 

jobs.  Be  that  as  it  may,  certainly  there  is  no 
denying  that  he  who  opposes  cooperation,  in 
an  attempt  to  preserve  wasteful  or  unnecessary 
operations  is  a  malpracticing  economic  physi- 
cian. To  the  man  Roadtown  throws  out  of  a 
job,  it  offers  a  chance  to  engage  in  productive 
labor  where  one  cannot  get  out  of  a  job, 
because  so  long  as  men  receive  the  full  fruits 
of  their  toil,  with  free  and  untaxed  exchange, 
over-production  as  an  economic  calamity  is 
an  absolute  impossibility. 

The  End  of  Monotonous  Labor. 

Thus  far  we  have  discussed  agriculture  and 
manufacturing  as  industries  to  be  engaged  in 
by  different  sets  of  workers.  In  practice,  I 
believe  they  will  be  bountifully  intermingled. 
A  man  may  work  at  a  shoe  stitcher  for  three 
hours,  turn  off  the  power  and  go  out  and  hoe 
potatoes.  Likewise  his  wife  may  run  the  same 
machine,  or  a  lace  machine  for  a  while,  and  for 
a  change  of  occupation  operate  the  electric 
hoe  (something  on  the  order  of  a  dentist's 
drill,  only  much  larger)  in  the  vegetable 
or  flower  garden.     Not  only  will  Roadtown 


ROADTOWN  115 

free  the  factory  worker  from  wage  slavery, 
but  it  will  free  both  farmer  and  machine 
worker  from  long  hours  of  toil  at  monoto- 
nous work.  It  will  free  our  civilization 
from  the  curse  of  making  machines  out  of 
men;  it  will  sift  out  the  indolent  and  place 
them  at  the  bottom  of  the  scale  of  life's 
good  things.  It  will  reward  the  industrious 
as  much  as  man  can  be  rewarded  without  being 
given  power  to  enslave  his  fellows.  It  will 
make  men  free;  it  will  abolish  machine  men, 
factory  and  sweat  shops,  and  child  labor  and 
woman's  economic  dependence  on  man  that 
makes  her  a  sexual  slave.  And  such  work, 
such  making  of  children  into  men  and  women 
instead  of  automatons,  may  lessen  the  speed  at 
which  some  machines  are  fed,  and  may  even 
make  tissue  paper  flowers  on  hats  dearer,  but  it 
will  certainly  make  cow  butter  and  big  red 
apples  cheaper  and  real  flowers  more  abundant 
and  raise  the  per  capita  valuation  of  human 
life. 


CHAPTER  X 

R0ADT0WN     MAKES     CO-OPERATION     PRACTICAL 

IN  the  modern  world  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  an  absolute  individualist,  or  an  absolute 
cooperationist.  The  most  rabid  enemy  of  so- 
cialistic and  cooperative  movements  sends  his 
children  to  a  cooperative  school,  puts  his  mail 
in  a  cooperative  post  office,  and  pays  the  co- 
operative preachers;  he  drinks  cooperative 
water  and  uses  the  cooperative  sewage  system 
and  drives  his  automobile  on  a  cooperative 
road.  On  the  other  hand,  the  most  enthusi- 
astic socialist  wants  to  write  his  own  books  and 
paint  his  own  pictures  and  sign  his  name  to 
them  and  get  the  glory.  Why,  then,  should 
the  poultry  breeder,  or  the  skilled  bookbinder 
cast  the  individuality  of  his  labor  into  the  melt- 
ing pot  of  cooperative  production? 

In  Roadtown  the  lamb  of  socialism  shall  lie 
116 


ROADTOWN  117 

down  with  the  leopard  of  individuality  and  a 
child  of  the  common  good  shall  lead  them. 

A  Mecca  for  the  Individualist. 

The  Roadtown  corporation  will  stand  ready 
to  sell  the  product  of  the  individuals  or  that  of 
the  cooperative  producers,  but  it  will  not  pro- 
hibit them  from  selling  individually  if  they  so 
desire.  If,  for  illustration,  a  man  should  wish 
to  complete  the  making  of  a  glove,  though  he 
accomplished  but  one-fifth  of  the  combined 
work  of  four  men,  yet  if  this  man  prefers  to 
take  less  pay  or  work  longer  hours  in  order  to 
have  the  satisfaction  of  working  for  himself 
and  seeing  one  piece  of  work  completely 
through  to  the  finish,  the  community  would 
have  no  complaint — he  would  pay  his  own  way 
and  would  get  his  pleasure  from  the  independ- 
ence in  his  work.  In  so  doing  he  may  develop 
in  himself  or  in  his  child  the  latent  qualities  of 
art  that  machine-like  application  would  blot 
out  forever.  In  like  manner,  men  with  strong 
social  temperaments,  to  carry  out  their  ideal 
would  sometimes  attempt  to  conduct  agricul- 
ture, or  artistic  work  together  that  could  be  run 


118  ROADTOWN 

at  greater  total  productiveness  individually. 
If  the  difference  were  greater  than  the  lessen- 
ing of  consumption,  the  venture  would  fail. 
But  if  the  difference  were  slight  both  types  of 
workmen  would  produce  better  when  doing  the 
tiling  they  wish  to  do  and  the  community 
would  get  better  wTork,  and  what  is  more  im- 
portant, better  men. 

The  Roadtown  by  opening  up  the  highways 
of  exchange  to  all,  and  preventing  the  develop- 
ment of  huge  privately  owned  corporations, 
gives  opportunity  for  the  free  play  in  both  in- 
dividual and  cooperative  production.  The 
trust  system  of  industry  we  have  to-day  allows 
only  such  forms  of  privately  owned  industries 
to  exist  as  cater  to  its  own  need.  Cooperative 
retail  stores  are  commonly  boycotted  by  the 
wholesalers,  a  notable  example  of  which  was 
the  cooperative  store  organized  by  the  federal 
employes  at  Washington.  On  the  other 
hand,  wholesalers  commonly  dictate  the  retail 
prices  at  which  their  goods  may  be  sold  by  so- 
called  competitive  retailers.  The  retailer  who 
cuts  his  price  is  boycotted.     There  is  no  in- 


ROADTOWN  119 

dividualism,  all  are  tools  and  puppets  of  the 
trusts. 

The  Roadtown  Department  Store. 

The  Roadtown  will  supply  the  wants  of  the 
people  through  cooperative  stores.  This  does 
not  mean  that  Roadtowners  will  be  prohibited 
from  buying  outside  of  Roadtown  or  from 
selling  his  own  product  inside  or  outside  of 
Roadtown,  but  it  does  mean  that  the  general 
game  of  private  merchandising  will  in  Road- 
town be  a  cooperative  function  and  that  the 
wasteful  multiplication  of  the  small  shops  will 
be  eliminated.  The  various  departments  of 
the  Roadtown  department  stores  will  not  all  be 
in  one  place,  but  will  be  strung  along  the  line 
at  intervals  of  great  enough  length  to  give  the 
greatest  economy  in  delivery.  At  every  food 
serving  station  will  be  a  store  supplying  the 
common  daily  needs,  especially  those  that  are 
almost  always  ordered  by  telephone.  These 
will  likely  be  located  about  every  half  mile. 
Other  classes  of  merchandise  less  frequently 
called  for  will  be  located  at  greater  distances ; 


120  ROADTOWN 

thus  men's  haberdasher  shops  might  be  every 
three  miles  and  millinery  stores  every  two 
miles,  while  one  artist's  material  shop  would 
suffice  for  an  entire  hundred  miles  of  Road- 
town. 

The  same  system  of  varying  lengths  of  units 
will  apply  to  all  Roadtown  utilities.  The 
units  will  be  made  of  such  length  as  is  found  to 
be  most  economical.  The  population  which 
patronizes  three  serving  stations  may  all  get 
their  heat  from  a  single  heating  plant,  while 
the  length  of  two  heating  systems  might  be 
found  a  profitable  unit  to  be  put  under  the 
charge  of  one  landscape  gardener. 

This  feature  of  Roadtown  offers  great 
economies  over  the  single  large  building.  For 
instance,  in  an  apartment  house  accommodat- 
ing one  hundred  families,  lights  heat,  telephone, 
sweeping  systems,  etc.,  must  all  be  one  hundred 
family  systems,  regardless  of  whether  that  is 
the  most  economical  unit  for  the  system  or  not. 
Roadtown  utilizes  every  utility  in  length  which 
gives  the  maximum  efficiency  for  that  partic- 
ular device.  The  foregoing  sentence  consists 
of  eighteen  words,  but  the  truth  expressed 


ROADTOWN  121 

therein  is  of  tremendous  economic  significance. 
Think  it  over. 

Cooperative  features  of  Roadtown  which 
require  special  centers  will  be  located  where 
special  towers  or  f acades  can  be  built  to  break 
the  monotony  of  the  house  line. 

The  advantage  of  the  universal  transmission 
of  intelligence  will  be  seen  in  all  the  industries 
of  the  Roadtown.  The  entire  industrial  and 
living  system  will  be  equipped  with  telephones 
just  as  are  the  various  departments  of  a  large 
factory.  For  illustration:  The  Roadtown 
will  employ  an  agricultural  expert.  At  his 
office  will  be  kept  soil  maps  of  the  entire  Road- 
town area,  and  he  will  be  in  a  position  to  advise 
freely  with  the  farmers  along  the  line  what  to 
plant,  where  to  plant,  and  when  to  plant.  Or 
if  a  farmer  finds  a  new  kind  of  bug  eating  up 
the  cabbage  leaves,  he  will  simply  pick  a  few 
bugs,  put  them  in  a  bottle  and  send  the  bottle 
by  mechanical  carriers  to  the  agricultural  office. 
The  agriculturist  will  then  advise  him  by 
'phone  as  to  what  course  to  pursue. 

The  same  close  touch  with  the  producers  on 
the  line  will  apply  in  the  case  of  the  supply  of 


122  ROADTOWN 

food  growing  in  the  gardens  along  the  line. 
The  gardeners  from  day  to  day  can  'phone  the 
chef  what  they  will  have  to  offer,  and  he  can 
arrange  the  bill  of  fare  accordingly,  while  the 
manager  of  the  store  can  keep  the  Roadtowner 
posted  on  the  probable  demand  for  various 
goods  made  in  his  work  room. 


CHAPTER  XI 

R0ADT0WN   EDUCATION   AND   SOCIAL   LIFE 

AN  ideal  social  life  is  one  in  which  people 
can  be  together  when  they  wish  to  be 
together,  and  alone  when  they  wish  to  be  alone. 
The  better  the  transportation  facilites,  the 
more  nearly  of  attainment  is  such  a  condition. 
The  Roadtowners  in  all  thickly-populated  sec- 
tions will  be  within  commuting  distance  of 
nearby  cities  and  the  attractions  of  these  cen- 
ters will  be  open  to  them.  But  such  social 
life,  even  for  those  who  live  in  the  city,  is  sadly 
deficient.  City  people  have  theaters,  libraries, 
churches  and  crowds,  but  they  do  not  have 
neighbors  with  common  interests.  The  Road- 
towners who  get  the  food  at  the  same  kitchen, 
and  hear  the  same  band  play,  and  sell  their 
products  cooperatively,  and  promenade  on  the 
same  endless  roof  garden,  and  send  their  chil- 
dren to  the  same  instructors,  are  going  to  get 

123 


124  ROADTOWN 

acquainted  if  they  so  desire.  The  entire 
Roadtown  will  be  in  connection  by  the  loud 
speaking  telephone,  and  folks  can  call  on  each 
other  on  a  stormy  night  without  so  much  as 
getting  out  of  their  comfortable  rockers,  but, 
for  that  matter,  while  there  will  be  more  to 
keep  a  Roadtowner  at  home,  there  will  be  less 
to  keep  him  from  going  away  from  home  when 
he  wants  to.  If  anyone  is  lonesome  in  Road- 
town,  it  is  simply  because  he  has  no  friends, 
and  if  he  has  no  friends,  it  can  scarcely  be  any- 
one's fault  but  his  own. 

But  the  social  life  of  Roadtown  will  not  be 
limited  to  city  trips  and  neighborly  calls.  The 
Roadtown  will  have  cooperative  amusement 
centers,  just  as  it  will  have  cooperative  kitch- 
ens and  stores.  At  spots  where  the  Roadtown 
crosses  streams  or  passes  the  mountains  or  the 
sea  shore  and  at  certain  distances  apart, 
amusement  parks  will  be  located.  Here  will 
be  the  athletic  grounds,  swimming  pools,  gym- 
nasiums and  the  means  of  entertainment  com- 
mon and  uncommon  to  like  resorts.  At  more 
frequent  intervals  in  the  Roadtown,  and  so  dis- 
tributed as  to  give  picturesque  variety  to  the 


ROADTOWN  125 

house  line  will  be  museums,  art  galleries,  the- 
aters, lecture  halls  and  dance  halls.  All  such 
features  that  are  supported  by  the  corporation 
must,  of  course,  be  open  to  all  residents.  Or- 
ganizations that  are  not  for  the  benefit  of  the 
majority  of  the  inhabitants  will  be  supported 
by  their  adherents.  The  halls  of  the  associa- 
tion will  be  open  to  all  meetings,  religious  or 
otherwise,  where  nonconflicting  dates  can  be 
arranged. 

The  Roadtown  will  offer  opportunity  for 
the  revival  of  athletics  upon  a  scale  unheard 
of  since  the  Olympian  games  of  ancient 
Greece. 

Roadtown  Athletics. 

The  Roadtown  community,  because  of  the 
spirit  of  cooperation  and  mutuality  which  will 
pervade  all  phases  of  life,  will  extend  into 
mature  years  the  institutional  patriotism 
which  forms  such  a  large  part  of  modern  school 
and  college  life.  Under  such  conditions  we 
may  expect  to  see  developed  a  grand  series  of 
meets  in  all  manner  of  competitive  arts  and 
sports.     The  winners  of  the  local  meets  or  ex- 


126  ROADTOWN 

hibitions  will  again  compete  at  the  grand  ath- 
letic and  art  centers. 

The  Roadtown  will  bring  the  opportunity  to 
indulge  in  the  sports  and  recreations  much 
nearer  the  life  of  the  whole  people  than  in  the 
present  civilization. 

There  is  no  reason  why  every  boy,  big  and 
little,  should  not  attend  the  ball  games  and  ath- 
letic meets  on  the  home  field  as  well  as  the 
grand  finale  in  which  his  team  participates. 

Transportation  will  cost  him  nothing,  the 
ball  ground  will  be  owned  by  the  community 
and  the  hours  of  Roadtown  labor  will  be  set  by 
the  will  of  the  worker  and  not  by  the  greed  of 
the  capitalist's  purse. 

Education  for  Old  as  Well  as  Young. 

Roadtown  education  will  apply  to  all  ages 
of  both  sexes.  The  whole  living  scheme  of 
Roadtown  will  be  a  vast  school.  The  modern 
school,  a  place  where  we  send  our  children  to 
be  herded  in  immense  droves  under  the  care  of 
girls  who  use  the  teaching  profession  as  a 
makeshift  until  an  opportunity  of  marriage 
arrives,  is  far  from  perfection  as  a  means  of 


ROADTOWN  127 

child  development.  The  disciplinarian  system 
of  education  which  crushes  out  individuality 
and  molds  all  children  in  the  industrial-po- 
litical virtue  of  being  bossed,  is  likely  to  vanish 
as  a  population  is  freed  from  economic  slavery. 

Roadtown  will  provide  instruction  for  those 
who  wish  to  learn  and  citizenship  prizes  and 
privileges  will  go  to  the  educated,  and  compul- 
sory education  and  graded  schools  in  time  will 
have  no  excuse  for  existence.  These  are  strik- 
ing statements  and  I  am  simply  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  change  that  I  believe  will  come 
about  naturally  and  unresisted. 

The  Roadtown  will  have  to  pay  county 
taxes,  but  on  account  of  its  1,000  population 
to  the  mile  will  influence  the  location  of  these 
schools  in  Roadtown.  At  first  the  use  of  the 
present  public  school  methods  must  necessarily 
be  employed ;  gradually  as  the  Roadtown  gains 
influence  and  better  teachers  are  secured  the 
educational  system  can  be  adapted  more 
closely  to  Roadtown  life. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Roadtown  home  will 
be  an  enlightened  one.  The  Roadtown  library 
will  be  a  book  store  house,  not  a  reading-room. 


128  RQADTOWN 

If  the  citizen  wants  a  book  or  magazine  he 
telephones  the  library  and  in  a  few  minutes  the 
book  is  delivered  to  him  by  mechanical  carrier. 
The  kind  of  free  library  we  have  to-day  re- 
quires ten  cents  car  fare  and  much  time  to  get 
a  book. 

There  will  be  a  library  of  telegraphone 
records,  which  do  not  have  to  be  duplicated  for 
every  household,  but  one  set  at  a  central  office 
will  suffice,  where  one  girl  can  run  a  compli- 
cated programme  of  music  and  lectures  for 
many  homes. 

Eyes  to  be  Used  Less  and  Ears  More. 

Excessive  reading  is  hard  on  the  eyes  and  it 
lacks  much  of  the  efficiency  that  auditory  meth- 
ods have  of  conveying  ideas.  Our  education 
has  been  entirely  too  much  from  the  printed 
page  and  too  little  from  the  use  of  the  ear. 
The  Roadtown  dictograph  and  telegra- 
phone will  change  all  this.  The  child  who  has 
not  yet  learned  the  letters  can  be  taught  to 
speak  German  and  told  stories  of  nature  and 
history.  And  in  all  this  education  the  parent 
will  learn  along  with  the  child  and  become 


ROADTOWN  129 

fascinated  by  such  a  wonderful  process.  The 
significance  of  this  telegraphone  and  dicto- 
graph will  never  be  appreciated  until  we  have 
it  in  operation.  The  telegraphone  is  not  a 
cheap  instrument  to  build,  but  when  operated 
on  a  large  scale  will  be  extremely  economical 
for  each  family.  From  a  programme  an- 
nounced in  advance  a  choice  may  be  had 
from  a  hundred  pieces  kept  playing  at  once. 
More  than  one  wire  can  lead  to  each  house  if 
desired.  The  family  may  be  in  the  drawing- 
room,  listening  to  grand  opera  or  a  lecture  on 
philosophy,  and  Jimmy  may  be  upstairs, 
tucked  in  bed  with  ear  muffs  clapped  over  his 
curls,  being  put  to  sleep  by  Sinbad  the  Sailor 
or  the  Twenty-third  Psalm,  according  to  his 
mother's  idea  of  child  psychology. 

Outside  of  the  visual  and  auditory  library  in 
the  home,  the  second  great  new  feature  in 
Roadtown  education  will  be  the  home  work  of 
the  child's  parents.  In  work  room  and  garden 
the  child  will  learn  what  the  world  is  for. 
About  the  most  pitiable  thing  imaginable  is  a 
child  whose  parents  do  not  believe  in  child  la- 
bor.    I  do  not  mean  the  killing  of  children  in 


130  ROADTOWN 

mines  and  mills,  but  the  child  labor  such  as  you 
see  on  the  wholesome  farm,  where  the  child 
does  his  part  along  with  the  rest  of  the  family. 

The  present  system  of  keeping  a  child  from 
all  work  until  his  body  and  mind  are  formed 
and  then  plunging  him  into  industrial  life  is 
only  exceeded  in  folly  and  cruelty  by  the  child 
slavery  system  commonly  known  as  "child  la- 
bor." "All  work  and  no  play  makes  Jack  a 
dull  boy,"  but  all  school  and  play  and  no  work 
makes  Jack  a  jackass. 

The  Roadtown  child  will  learn  his  parent's 
occupation,  and  his  uncle's  and  aunt's  occupa- 
tion, and  his  neighbor's  occupation,  and  will 
have  more  ability  to  take  care  of  himself  when 
he  is  ten  years  old  than  the  present  city-bred 
college  man  of  twenty. 

But  the  community  as  a  whole  has  some 
claim  on  the  child's  life  and  the  child's  future 
as  well  as  the  parents — a  fact  that  all  intelli- 
gent parents  will  recognize.  For  this  reason 
instruction  outside  the  family  is  desirable  and 
will  be  arranged  by  the  Roadtown  public 
school  system. 

The    occupation    of    housekeeping    having 


ROADTOWN  131 

been  eliminated,  the  kindergarten  teaching 
force  of  Roadtown  will  be  composed  of  women 
of  mature  minds,  many  of  whom  will  have 
borne  children  and  are  therefore  equipped  with 
actual  experience  in  caring  for  them. 

With  the  entire  population  to  select  from 
more  real  or  natural-born  teachers  will  be 
found  than  under  the  present  regime,  where 
most  married  women  are  limited  in  occupation 
to  family  food  manufacturer  and  household 
drudge. 

Mothers  for  Public  School  Teachers. 

To  these  instructors  the  children  will  go  at 
hours  as  arranged  for.  One  woman  will  take 
little  tots  into  her  home  to  amuse  and  care  for 
them  while  their  mothers  are  away  or  at  work. 
Another  will  instruct  the  children  in  mathe- 
matics. The  man  skilled  in  botany  will  in- 
struct groups  of  children  in  his  garden,  and  the 
chemist  and  mineralogist  in  their  laboratories. 
Instead  of  grade  schools  we  will  have  child  uni- 
versities; instead  of  college  degrees  there  will 
be  citizenship  examinations,  with  rewards  of 
positions  of  trust  in  Roadtown  management. 


132  ROADTOWN 

Instead  of  college  young  folks  and  old  fogy 
old  folks  there  will  be  an  industrial  university 
and  universal  athletics  and  sports.  The  Road- 
town  school  system  will  be  the  most  versatile 
imaginable.  It  will  develop  the  greatest  gen- 
iuses the  world  has  ever  known  and  save  the 
most  money.  Pounding  literature  into  the 
head  of  a  natural  born  mechanic  is  both  eco- 
nomic and  mental  waste.  The  universal  query 
in  Roadtown  will  not  be  what  does  he  know, 
but  what  can  he  do. 

Physical  education  will  be  fully  as  much  a 
matter  of  public  concern  in  Roadtown  as  men- 
tal education.  It  ought  to  be,  for  disease  is 
contagious,  ignorance  is  not.  The  Roadtown 
child  will  play  in  the  open  country  like  farm 
boys.  He  will  be  brown  and  sturdy  and  fall 
out  of  trees  and  go  swimming  in  the  creek,  but 
he  will  not  be  a  wild  animal,  or  a  pet  to  be 
taken  out  and  aired  by  the  nurse — distinguish- 
able from  the  poodle  only  by  the  absence  of  the 
chain. 


ROADTOWN  133 

Lowest  Death  Rate  in  History. 

The  Roadtown  death  rate  will  be  the  low- 
est in  the  history  of  the  world.  Roadtown  will 
give  the  freedom  to  choose  from  the  work  and 
play  of  city  and  country,  the  exercise  and  rest, 
which  is  necessary  to  the  development  of  a 
good  physique.  The  Roadtowner  will  eat 
pure  food,  drink  pure  water,  breathe  pure  air. 
His  bedding  and  clothes  will  be  aired  and 
when  necessary  fumigated.  His  laundry  will 
be  disinfected.  His  house  will  be  made  germ 
proof.  The  result  will  be  that  consumption 
and  typhoid  and  pneumonia  will  disappear 
with  the  first  generation.  A  few  diseases 
which  are  transmitted  by  contact  and  the  occa- 
sional cripples  that  are  born  so  will  persist,  but 
sickness  and  premature  death  in  Roadtown 
will  be  so  rare  as  to  cause  wonder.  Dissipa- 
tion and  the  use  of  patent  medicines  and  nar- 
cotic drugs  cannot  be  prevented,  but  with  co- 
operative industrial  organization  and  no  one 
profiting  by  the  trade,  these  and  other  health- 
destroying  fakes  will  have  far  less  chance  to 
grow  or  even  survive. 


134  ROADTOWN 

The  public  utilities  of  Roadtown  will  include 
hospitals  and  nurseries.  Public  sanitary  offi- 
cers will  supervise  and  consult  with  residents. 
Private  physicians  will  be  available  if  there  be 
any  demand  for  them,  and  when  a  doctor  is 
wanted  he  will  be  able  to  come  quickly.  For 
the  liniment  and  bandage  for  a  cut  thumb,  a 
speedier  service  than  the  monorail  will  be  avail- 
able, for  the  telephone  and  the  mechanical  car- 
rier will  be  brought  into  play.  No  one  in 
Roadtown  can  live  more  than  two  or  three  min- 
utes from  the  drug  store. 

With  all  the  cooperative  utilities  and  me- 
chanical perfections  that  Roadtown  offers 
there  is  a  very  natural  tendency  to  associate 
the  essentials  of  home  life  with  certain  forms 
and  locations  of  houses  that  our  experience 
connects  with  the  best  home  life  we  have  known 
rather  than  to  get  down  to  the  real  causes  and 
principles  involved. 

Much  of  our  present  sense  of  house  archi- 
tecture is  indeed  destined  to  be  quite  lost,  for 
the  Roadtowner  enters  his  home  from  above 
or  below,  and  the  pleasurable  emotions  aroused 
by  the  view  of  one's   cottage   as  he   comes 


ROADTOWN  135 

up  the  walk  must  be  attached  to  other  sen- 
sations. But  home  is  a  place  for  companion- 
ship as  distinct  from  the  swirl  of  business  and 
the  jostle  of  the  crowds;  nor  is  all  compan- 
ionship necessarily  human.  A  lawn  to  keep 
and  some  chickens  and  garden  to  care  for  are 
far  closer  to  the  essence  of  home  than  the  gable 
on  one's  cottage. 

In  the  first  place  the  Roadtown  will  be  freer 
from  noise  than  either  city  or  village.  There 
will  be  no  lumbering  vehicles  and  no  tramp  of 
either  horse  or  man  upon  unshielded  pavement. 
All  stairs,  roof  promenade,  hallway  and  mono- 
rail platform  will  be  matted;  while  the  noise- 
lessness  of  the  transportation  service  is  one  of 
the  fundamental  conceptions  of  Roadtown. 
There  is  no  clanking  furnace  in  the  Roadtown 
dwelling.  There  is  no  common  dumb-waiter 
through  which  one  receives  unwelcome  knowl- 
edge of  his  neighbor's  business.  That  the 
sound  will  not  enter  from  the  roof  above  or  the 
open  windows  of  one's  neighbor's  was  ex- 
plained in  a  previous  chapter.  To  be  spied 
upon  by  one's  neighbors  is  even  more  objec- 
tionable than  to  be  overheard.     In  this  respect 


136  ROADTOWN 

Roadtown  is  superior  to  any  type  of  dwelling 
yet  devised,  for  in  all  other  forms  of  residence 
the  windows  of  the  house  look  out  upon  the 
street.  The  Roadtown  passersby  are  above 
and  below  and  no  one  may  look  into  the  win- 
dows unless  he  is  in  a  private  garden.  This 
unique  arrangement  gives  the  Roadtown  home 
a  sense  of  privacy  and  a  freedom  in  the  use 
of  light  and  air  now  known  only  upon  isolated 
farms. 

The  actual  nearness  of  strangers  to  the 
Roadtown  homes  is  of  no  concern,  since  one  has 
no  knowledge  of  their  presence.  That  we 
meet  them  upon  the  roof  promenade  or  at  the 
monorail  station  is  certainly  not  an  objec- 
tion. 

The  Roadtown  inhabitants  rent  of  the  com- 
munity, not  of  a  private  individual.  Such  a 
lease  will  be  permanent  as  long  as  the  lessee 
pays  the  rent  and  does  not  offend  the  rules  of 
the  commonwealth.  Sales  for  taxes  and  arrest 
for  the  breaking  of  the  civil  law  are  present 
limitations  to  individual  liberty,  from  which 
the  principles  of  Roadtown  departs  not  one 
iota,  but  simply  extends  it  in  keeping  with  the 


ROADTOWN  137 

greater  number  of  common  projects  in  which 
the  community  is  interested. 

A  Home  in  the  Truest  Sense. 

The  only  further  sense  that  attaches  to  the 
idea  of  home  is  as  a  protection  from  the  pov- 
erty of  old  age.  A  plan  whereby  the  Road- 
town  corporation  will  give  permanent  rent  to 
a  person  who  has  paid  a  sufficient  sum  into  the 
corporation  treasury  may  be  developed  co- 
operatively by  the  tenants.  But  a  place  to 
live  in  is  only  half  insurance  against  poverty  of 
old  age,  and  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  a  com- 
munity trained  in  cooperation,  as  the  Road- 
town  community  will  be  trained,  will  not  only 
ultimately  insure  its  aged  inhabitants'  rent  but 
a  sufficient  sum  to  keep  them  in  decent  com- 
fort. The  first  generation  will  never  quite  for- 
get the  egoistic  pleasure  that  is  derived  from 
our  present  forms  of  deeds  for  houses  and 
lands,  but  the  sentiment  of  home  ownership  as 
we  now  know  it  will  die  with  the  generation. 

The  individual  pleasure  of  house  construc- 
tion will  be  lost  in  Roadtown,  just  as  we  have 
already  lost  the  pleasure  of  vehicle  construe- 


138  ROADTOWN 

tion.  The  man  who  argues  that  people  will 
not  live  in  Roadtown  because  they  cannot  build 
and  own  their  own  homes  is  a  lineal  descend- 
ant of  the  man  who  said  they  would  not  ride 
on  railroads  for  similar  reasons.  The  Road- 
town  inhabitant  will  simply  transfer  his  senti- 
ments and  put  his  individuality  into  other  arts. 
The  builder  of  a  modern  private  railroad  car 
furnishes  trucks  and  couplings  which  will  en- 
able him  to  be  carried  by  engines  and  over  rails 
used  in  common. 

Carriages,  railroads,  automobiles,  in  their 
time,  were  at  first  opposed  by  the  artists  of  the 
day. 

The  Roadtown  now  looks  like  a  Chinese  wall 
— when  it  is  realized  it  will  look  like  a  Road- 
town, and  Roadtown  will  mean  comfort,  con- 
tentment and  prosperity,  and  new  sentiment 
and  new  art  will  replace  the  old. 


CHAPTER  XII 

WHO   WILL   BUILD   THE   ROADTOWNS 

MY  many  friends  have  advised  me  to  sell 
the  Roadtown  patents  or  form  a  com- 
pany and  sell  stock.  But  these  people  have 
failed  to  realize  the  comprehensiveness  of  the 
Roadtown  project.  Indeed,  should  I  have 
promoted  the  Roadtown  as  a  monopoly  for  pri- 
vate gain  I  would  have  unquestionably  been 
the  meanest  man  on  earth,  for  in  me  and  my 
backers  would  have  been  combined  all  the  des- 
potism of  the  landlord,  the  railroad  magnate, 
the  factory  slave  driver,  the  wasteful  middle- 
man, the  extortionate  retailer  and  half  of  the 
commodity  trusts.  The  private  owners  of  the 
Roadtown  would  be  absolute  master  of  the  in- 
habitants in  every  phase  of  life. 

I  know  no  better  way  to  explain  to  my  well- 
meaning  friends  who  wear  dollars  instead  of 
lenses  in  their  spectacle  frames  why  I  do  not 

139 


140  ROADTOWN 

care  to  make  a  private  monopoly  of  Roadtown, 
than  to  say  that  I  was  raised  in  a  country  town 
and  know  the  sad  limitations  of  human  aspira- 
tions due  to  the  loneliness  and  narrowed  hori- 
zon of  isolated  existence,  and  that  I  have  also 
lived  in  the  congested  districts  of  New  York 
and  of  other  large  cities  and  know  the  pain 
and  misery  of  the  life  of  the  city,  and  that  for 
me  to  think  of  promoting  Roadtown  as  a 
private  graft  would  be  exactly  comparable  to 
the  idea  of  the  discoverer  of  diphtheria  anti- 
toxin keeping  the  secret  for  selfish  gains. 

The  Roadtowns  will  be  built  by  the  people 
who  believe  in  its  principles  and  who  have 
money  to  invest  at  5  per  cent,  or  the  market 
price  of  a  security  better  than  municipal  bonds. 
The  Roadtown  corporations  will  each  be 
chartered  with  a  nominal  capital  stock  which 
will  bear  no  dividends.  I  will  at  first  hold  this 
stock  in  trust.  This  stock  will  be  the  voting 
stock  of  the  corporation,  hence,  I  or  trustees 
I  might  name  will  have  control  of  the  policy 
of  the  company  within  the  limitations  of  the 
charter.  I  wish  this  stock  to  be  non-dividend 
paying  so  the  Roadtown  can  never  be  made  to 


ROADTOWN  141 

pay  profits  to  me  or  anyone  else  and  to  pay 
interest  on  bonds  only  to  those  who  are  cash 
investors.  My  object  in  holding  or  trusteeing 
this  stock  is  to  keep  the  control  of  the  Road- 
town  out  of  the  hands  of  those  who  may  use 
such  control  as  a  means  to  the  numerous  forms 
of  graft  commonly  present  in  corporations. 
I  wish  to  stand  between  the  bond  holders  and 
the  residents  of  Roadtown  and  the  grafters, 
and  this  privilege  is  the  reward  I  ask  for  the 
invention  of  Roadtown — I  want  no  promoters 
or  monopoly  profits,  no  inventors'  stock,  and 
no  fancy  salary,  but  I  do  want  the  opportunity 
to  see  that  no  one  else  gets  any  such  advantage 
over  the  Roadtowners. 

My  reason  for  wishing  to  control  the  voting 
stock  of  Roadtown  is  that  I  do  not  believe  a 
democratic  organization  can  be  created  at  once 
in  its  entirety  but  that  it  will  have  to  evolve 
naturally.  If  an  oligarchic  form  of  control 
was  established  now  it  would  doubtless  be  per- 
petuated for  generations  and  become  corrupt 
as  are  present  corporations  and  governments. 
I  believe  that  during  my  life  time,  I,  with 
the  aid  of  good  advisers,  can  evolve  a  purely 


142  ROADTOWN 

democratic  form  of  control  and  thus  per- 
manently prevent  it  from  falling  into  corrupt 
hands.  I  confidently  expect  the  cooperation 
of  men  of  the  highest  national  reputation  in 
matters  of  trusteeships. 

Home  Rule  for  Roadtowners, 

The  Roadtown  management  will  have  to 
grow  and  develop  starting  perhaps  with  one- 
half  mile  section  and  adopt  such  rules  as  are 
necessary  to  the  protection  and  comfort  of  the 
tenants.  They  will  be  consulted  about  what- 
ever concerns  them  directly  and  thus  gradually 
evolve  into  a  plan  of  self-government.  When 
I  say  self-government  I  mean  as  regards  the 
things  that  under  our  present  system  they 
haven't  a  word  to  say.  They  go  to  the  polls 
occasionally  and  vote  for  somebody  but  can 
seldom  trace  any  benefit  from  the  vote.  In 
Roadtown  direct  legislation,  initiative,  referen- 
dum and  recall  will  enable  a  man  to  really  have 
a  say. 

The  control  of  the  local  affairs  in  Road- 
town will  be  wholly  a  matter  of  local  option 


ROADTOWN  143 

and  the  suffrage  will  be  exercised  by  both 
sexes. 

There  will  be  no  definitely  set  districts  as 
townships  or  municipal  wards,  but  each  ques- 
tion to  be  voted  upon  will  be  submitted  to  the 
parties  concerned,  for  illustration :  the  steward 
will  be  elected  or  recalled  by  the  people  whose 
food  the  preparation  of  which  he  superintends. 
They  will  also  determine  his  salary.  If  they 
vote  him  a  high  salary  and  he  hires  an  expen- 
sive set  of  helpers  and  sets  a  luxurious  table 
the  people  who  elected  him  can  eject  him  if 
they  do  not  approve  of  his  extravagance,  but 
if  they  desire  to  live  wastefully  they  can  do  so 
and  the  people  of  more  moderate  tastes  can 
move  into  a  section  which  is  known  to  be  mod- 
erate. By  such  opportunity  for  local  option, 
people  will  be  given  the  chance  of  finding  sec- 
tions to  suit  their  tastes  and  purses. 

Roadtown  will  be  a  great  equalizer  of 
present  life  by  the  removal  of  special  privi- 
leges of  the  rich  and  those  who  are  "in"  to  reap 
where  they  have  not  sown,  but  there  will  be  no 
tendency  to  dictate  to  the  people  how  they 


144  ROADTOWN 

should  spend  the  money  they  have  equitably 
earned.  You  now  have  to  ask  the  gas  trust, 
the  ice  trust,  the  milk  and  meat  trust,  the 
middlemen's  trust  and  many  others  even  if  it 
is  permissible  for  you  to  marry  and  live  a 
normal  life. 

The  original  price  of  Roadtown  rents  will  be 
made  to  vary  with  the  desirability  of  the  loca- 
tion. Favored  localities  will  be  settled  by  peo- 
ple with  the  money  to  pay  for  it,  and  these 
people  will  naturally  vote  for  high  class  service 
and  this  in  turn  will  be  added  to  the  original 
price  of  rent.  In  this  manner  certain  sections 
of  Roadtown  may  become  more  expensive  and 
so  the  various  grades  of  society  will  find  their 
wants  readily  supplied. 

Roadtown  will  possess  a  leveling  influence, 
it  will  hasten  the  equality  and  brotherhood  of 
man  and  the  Kingdom  of  God  upon  the  Earth, 
but  it  will  not  reduce  man  to  a  single  level  at 
one  operation,  and  if  these  natural  laws  of 
human  nature  should  be  outraged  by  an  en- 
forced leveling  programme,  the  full  Roadtown 
development  would  be  seriously  retarded  for  a 
generation. 


ROADTOWN  145 

Detached  Villas  Practical  but  Undesirable. 

In  my  earlier  work  of  planning  on  Road- 
town  I  thought  it  would  be  necessary  to  cater 
to  the  wishes  of  the  well-to-do  by  discontinuing 
the  house  line  in  some  sections  and  breaking  it 
up  into  detached  villas.  By  carrying  the 
monorails  and  all  pipes  and  wires  in  a  trench 
from  villa  to  villa  the  full  benefit  of  the  co- 
operative functions  could  be  attained,  but  of 
course  with  the  additional  expense  of  the  extra 
land,  extra  length  of  the  trench  and  its  con- 
tents, the  extra  wall  and  the  loss  of  the  roof 
promenades.  I  know  of  nothing  that  will  give 
a  better  conception  of  the  wonders  of  Road- 
town  than  to  consider  for  a  moment  this  villa 
construction.  By  the  continuation  of  the 
Roadtown  trench  between  villas  it  would  be 
possible  to  give  to  a  modest  ten  or  twenty  thou- 
sand dollar  villa  facilities  that  would  cost  half 
a  million  if  installed  in  a  single  country  or 
suburban  home. 

But  when  we  had  such  a  villa  completed 
what  advantage  would  we  have  over  the  con- 
tinuous house?     A  few  added  windows  on  two 


146  ROADTOWN 

sides  of  the  house  that  would  look  out  into  the 
other  fellow's  windows  across  the  lawn  and  in- 
stead of  passersby  on  a  grand  promenade  above 
our  heads  entirely  removed  from  our  sight,  or 
we  from  theirs,  we  would  have  a  sidewalk  by 
the  door  where  our  neighbors  who  became 
curious  as  to  our  domestic  affairs  could  stroll 
and  stare  into  our  windows  and  doors.  In 
practice  more  light  and  air  could  enter  the  two 
freely  open  sides  of  the  Roadtown  house  than 
through  the  carefully  shuttered  windows  on 
four  sides  of  a  "private"  villa.  I  am  satisfied 
that  very  few  if  any  sections  of  Roadtown  will 
be  built  in  villas  because  they  will  offer  no  ad- 
vantages that  I  am  aware  of  to  offset  the  dis- 
advantages. People  will  accept  the  uniform- 
ity of  the  exterior  of  the  roofs  and  walls  as 
they  now  accept  the  uniformity  of  the  street. 
Their  personal  tastes  will  be  put  on  interior 
decorations  or  in  beautiful  gardens  that  may 
be  seen  from  the  roof  promenade  and  enjoyed 
by  all. 

Before  the  bonds  are  offered  for  the  develop- 
ment of  any  section  of  Roadtown  the  matter 
of    municipal    franchise,    and    options    from 


ROADTOWN  147 

suburban  land  owners  and  farmers  for  the  right 
of  way  and  for  garden  sites  will  progress  as 
much  as  is  practicable  and  a  statement  will  be 
issued  showing  the  appraisal  value  of  this  land, 
the  status  of  the  franchise  matter,  together 
with  architects'  drawings  and  engineers'  plans, 
and  specifications  setting  forth  the  estimated 
cost  of  a  certain  finished  structure  with  equip- 
ments in  a  certain  locality.  This  will  give  the 
prospective  bond  buyer  an  exact  knowledge  of 
the  property  upon  which  he  may  secure  the 
mortgage  in  exchange  for  his  money  which  will 
be  held  by  trustees  until  the  required  amount  is 
raised  and  then  disbursed  by  them  according 
to  the  specifications.  That  this  will  be  an 
excellent  security  will  be  assured  by  the  fact 
thac  the  options  will  be  secured  at  a  very  low 
rate  because  of  the  competition  raised  between 
rival  land  owners  all  of  whom  desire  transpor- 
tation and  the  other  Roadtown  facilities. 

This  principle  has  been  made  use  of  thou- 
sands of  times  in  railroad  and  trolley  promo- 
tion and  has  poured  millions  of  dollars  worth 
of  watered  stock  into  the  hands  of  crafty  pro- 
moters.    As  there  is  no  promoter's  graft  in 


148  ROADTOWN 

Roadtown  the  bidding  of  land  owners  for  this 
line  of  city  through  their  neighborhood  or 
property  will  turn  to  the  benefit  of  the  bond 
holder  in  enhancing  the  solidity  of  his  security 
and  to  the  land  owner  in  bringing  a  strip  of 
city  to  his  farm. 

Builders  of  Roadtown  Take  Minimum  Risk. 

The  wonderful  economies  of  the  Roadtown 
construction,  such  as  cheap  building  material, 
principally  rock  and  sand  from  the  farm,  steam 
shovel  excavation  instead  of  hand  shovel,  work 
train  instead  of  cart  hauling  and  poured 
cement  construction  instead  of  hand  labor,  the 
economies  of  open  piping  and  wiring,  and  the 
valuable  patents  that  are  being  donated  be- 
cause of  the  humanitarian  bases  of  promotion, 
will  give  a  better  building  for  the  money  than 
can  possibly  be  made  under  present  conditions 
anywhere  and  make  the  first  mortgage  on 
Roadtown,  including  as  it  does  transportation, 
telephone,  water,  gas,  electric,  sewage  and 
other  franchises,  real  estate  mortgage  and  a 
mortgage  on  a  permanent  fireproof  house,  will 
make  it  the  best  possible   form  of  security 


ROADTOWN  149 

known,  and  no  inflated  land  values.  Don't 
forget  that  feature.  Such  a  bond  will  be  vir- 
tually a  municipal  bond  as  the  people  living  in 
Roadtown  can  be  taxed  in  the  form  of  rent  to 
meet  the  interest.  No  one  who  has  fully 
grasped  the  principle  of  Roadtown  will  doubt 
for  a  minute  that  it  can  be  built,  for  it  is  not  a 
complicated  mechanism  which  must  fail  if  one 
part  proves  faulty,  but  simply  the  grouping  to- 
gether of  inventions  already  in  use.  And  even 
if  some  of  these  should  prove  to  be  unfeasible 
they  would  hardly  be  missed  in  the  total. 

The  whole  question  of  the  value  of  the  Road- 
town bonds  depends  upon  the  question  as  to 
whether  or  not  people  will  live  in  the  Roadtown 
after  it  has  been  built.  I  have  spent  a  hun- 
dred pages  telling  of  the  comforts,  conven- 
iences, social  and  industrial  advantages  of 
Roadtown  life.  Heretofore  I  might  have 
fallen  into  minor  errors,  but  no  sane  and  fair 
mind  can  reason  away  the  fact  that  Roadtown 
life  will  be  wonderfully  attractive  to  the  vast 
majority  of  mankind.  As  proof  of  this,  over 
a  hundred  high  class  families  have  spoken  for 
apartments  in  the  first  section,  if  it  happens  to 


150  ROADTOWN 

be  built  near  New  York.  But  suppose  we 
admit  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  the  Road- 
town  house  was  no  better  and  no  worse  to  live 
in  than  a  typical  suburban  house  of  to-day. 
Clearly  then  the  worth  of  the  Roadtown  bonds 
will  depend  wholly  upon  the  price  of  Road- 
town  rent  which  in  turn  will  depend  upon  the 
original  cost  and  the  cost  of  operation. 

The  Cost  of  the  First  Mile  of  Roadtown. 

With  a  view  of  answering  this  question  I 
submit  the  following  letters  and  figures  from 
Frank  L.  Sutton,  a  consulting  engineer  of  80 
Broadway,  New  York  City.  These  figures 
are  based  upon  the  cost  of  the  first  mile  of 
Roadtown.  These  figures  show  that  it  will 
not  be  necessary  to  build  a  long  section  of  the 
Roadtown  before  it  can  underbid  the  rental  of 
the  isolated  house  or  city  apartment  and  thus 
secure  population  and  begin  business. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  as  the  length  of 
the  Roadtown  increases  the  cost  per  mile  and 
the  cost  per  house  both  in  construction  and 
operation  will  decrease. 


ROADTOWN  151 

FRANK  SUTTON, 

CONSULTING  ENGINEER, 

80  Broadway, 
New  York,  November  12,  1909. 
Mr.  Edgar  Chambless, 

150  Nassau  Street,  New  York  City. 
Dear  Sir  :  Referring  to  the  report  hereto  attached 
giving  a  general  description  and  the  estimated  cost  of 
the  mechanical  and  electrical  equipments  for  the  Road- 
town,  as  well  as  the  cost  of  construction  of  the  build- 
ing and  equipment,  and  further  the  cost  of  operation, 
would  say  that  these  results  have  been  carefully  com- 
puted and  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  Roadtowns 
can  be  built  and  operated  for  the  figures  given  in  the 
report. 

On  account  of  the  arrangement  of  the  building  and 
the  convenience  by  which  raw  material  can  be  trans- 
ported, the  proposition  is  without  doubt  the  most 
economical  and  efficient  form  of  good  construction 
that  can  be  devised. 

Very  truly  yours, 

Feank  L.  Sutton. 


152  ROADTOWN 

REPORT 
ON 
CONSTRUCTION  WORK  AND  POWER  EQUIP- 
MENT FOR  PROPOSED 
ROADTOWN 

BY 

FRANK  SUTTON,  CONSULTING  ENGINEER, 

80   BROADWAY,   NEW   YORK   CITY. 

The  following  calculations  are  based  on  the  con- 
struction of  two  hundred  and  fifty  (250)  two-story 
houses  in  a  continuous  row.  This  also  includes  a 
continuous  glass  enclosed  roof  promenade  10  ft.  wide 
and  8  ft.  high.  The  estimate  gives  the  complete  con- 
struction of  these  buildings,  including  the  tunnel  for 
the  proposed  monorail  road,  also  a  central  power 
plant,  including  kitchen,  laundry  and  such  other 
equipments  as  may  be  necessary  for  the  proper  main- 
tenance of  such  an  establishment.  It  further  includes 
all  mains,  pipes,  wires,  so  that  when  the  plant  is  com- 
pleted it  would  be  ready  to  turn  over  to  the  occupant 
in  a  completely  finished  condition. 

Each  house  will  be  equipped  with  hot  water  heat 
furnished  from  a  central  station ;  electric  lights,  elec- 
tric power,  telephone  connected  with  central  station, 
vacuum  sweeping  system,  complete  plumbing  and 
water  supply. 


ROADTOWN  153 

The  calculations  which  are  given  herewith  are  fairly 
close  and  without  doubt  under  proper  management 
and  accessible  facilities  for  getting  material  the  work 
can  be  done  for  the  estimate  given. 

250  houses,  21'  wide  X  20'  deep,  with  seven 
rooms  well  furnished  as  per  illustration 

@  $1,800  each $450,000 

Five  cooperative  centers,  tower-like  in  effect  50,000 

Wiring  houses  based  on  $  50  per  house  12,500 

Heating,     «            "       "    $150     "       "  37,500 

Plumbing,  "            "       "    $125     "       "  21,250 

Laundry  machinery 8,000 

Cooking  apparatus 12,000 

Boiler  plant  and  heating  apparatus 40,000 

Refrigerating  plant 10,000 

Electric  plant  and  switchboard,  telephone  40,000 

Wiring,  feeder  mains,  etc .  12,000 

Brick  Chimney 4,000 

Sewerage  system   20,000 

Water  supply  and  mains  for  irrigation  and 

domestic  use 40,000 

Gas  and  vacuum  producers  and  holders  .  .  .  10,000 

One  mile  of  house — equipped $777,250 

Cost  per  house — equipped $3,109 


154  ROADTOWN 

The  principal  fixed  charges  for  labor,  coal,  interest 
on  the  investment  would  be  as  follows: 

Chief  engineer   $  2,400 

Two  (2)  assistant  engineers,  $80  per  month, 

$960  each 1,920 

Four  (4)  firemen,  $60  per  month,  $240  each  2,880 

Two  (2)  extra  men,  $50  per  month 1,200 

Chef,  $75  per  month 900 

Three  (3)  cooks,  $40  per  month 1,440 

Four  (4)  helpers,  $20  per  month 720 

One  (1)  laundryman,  $100  per  month 1,200 

Ten  (10)  women,  $20  per  month .  2,400 

Total  labor  cost $15,060 

Coal 4,000 

Oil  and  waste 500 

6%   interest  on  $581,250* $34,375... 

7%          "        "     196,000* 14,550...  48,852 

Total  expense  for  one  year's  operation, 

interest  and  depreciation $68,385 

Or  each  tenant's  rent  for  year  to  be  $22.76  per 

*  The  lower  rate  of  interest  is  charged  upon  the  house  and 
fixtures,  the  higher  rate  upon  the  plants  and  machinery. 


ROADTOWN  155 

month  or  $3.25  per  room,  exclusive  of  charge  for  food 
but  inclusive  of  furniture,  power,  cooking,  heat,  light, 
water,  vacuum  sweeping,  laundry  and  the  delivery  of 
all  food,  parcels,  produce,  etc. 

The  population  could  without  doubt  be  increased 
by  500  to  1,000  houses  more  without  any  material  in- 
crease in  the  principal  items  for  labor,  such  as  engin- 
eers, firemen  and  heads  of  departments.  The  only 
extra  increase  would  be  for  help  in  these  departments 
which  would  be  governed  by  the  amount  of  work  re- 
quired. 

TRANSPORTATION  CALCULATIONS. 

Using  Autos 

Four  (4)  electric  autos  for  passengers  and 

food    $12,000 

10%   interest,  depreciation  and  re- 
pairs     $1,200 

Six  (6)  men  @  $75  per  month  .  . .      5,400 


$6,600 


For  250  families  $1.70  per  month. 


Mr.  Sutton  has  not  included  the  Boyes 
Monorail  in  his  report  because  he  was  asked 
to  make  an  estimate  for  a  single  mile  of  Road- 


156  ROADTOWN 

town.  For  this  length  the  auto  service  is  the 
more  economical.  Mr.  Sutton,  however,  finds 
no  fault  with  the  Monorail,  as  is  seen  from  the 
following  letter: 

Mr.  Edgar  Chambless, 

New  York  City. 

Dear  Sir:  In  reference  to  the  adoption  of  the 
Boyes  Monorail  system  for  Roadtown  would  say  that 
I  have  carefully  examined  the  drawings  and  general 
outline  of  the  scheme  designed  by  Mr.  Boyes  and  be- 
lieve it  to  be  well  adapted  as  a  means  of  rapid  and 
noiseless  transportation,  and  further  believe  that  the 
operating  expenses  of  this  system  and  the  cost  of 
construction  will  be  extremely  reasonable.  The  de- 
sign of  the  system  from  a  mechanical  and  electrical 
standpoint  is  entirely  practical. 

Very  truly  yours, 

Frank  L.  Sutton. 

The  total  cost  for  building  and  operating 
the  Boyes  monorail  system  between  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  or  for  ninety  miles  is 
estimated  by  Mr.  Boyes  as  follows : 


ROADTOWN  157 

ESTIMATED  COST  OF  BUILDING  AND  OPER- 
ATING ROADTOWN  TRANSPORTATION. 

As  submitted  by  Wm.  H.  Boyes  using  the 
Boyes   Monorail   system. 

Line  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia — 90 
miles.  Cost  of  the  double  express  and 
single  local  track,  not  including  ex- 
cavation, cement  work,  nor  power 
plants  which  are  figured  in  general 
cost  of  Roadtown,  270  miles  at  $15,000 

per  mile   $4,050,000 

24  express  trains  at  $28,000 672,000 

18  local  trains  at  $5,000 90,000 

Total  cost  of  equipment $4,812,000 

Interest  and  upkeep  at  7y2% $  360,900 

126  motor  men  at  $1,000 126,000 

75  guards,  ticket  men,  etc 60,000 

Total   $    546,900 

Monthly  cost  per  family  $2. 

Economy  Increases  with  Length. 

The  Roadtown  becomes  more  efficient  as  it 
grows  in  length,  but  the  argument  that  it  can- 


158  ROADTOWN 

not  be  started  because  it  will  be  too  tremen- 
dous an  investment  to  build  a  house  a  hundred 
miles  long  is  wholly  without  meaning,  for  a 
Roadtown  of  a  hundred  apartments  would 
show  an  advantage  over  a  box  style  apartment 
house  of  the  same  room  capacity  and  this  effi- 
ciency would  increase  with  every  added  apart- 
ment. The  first  Roadtown  bonds  will  be 
floated  for  a  mile  or  half  mile  unit  and  will 
require  funds  well  within  the  cost  of  one  apart- 
ment house.  To  this  beginning  house  units 
will  be  added  as  fast  as  needed  and  more  utili- 
ties put  in  as  the  increasing  length  warrants  it. 
Suburban  land  owners  will  donate  rights  of 
way  and  garden  strips,  farmers  will  donate 
larger  gardens,  and  ranchmen  immense  farms. 
Each  will  be  governed  somewhat  by  the  bid- 
ding on  proposed  competing  routes,  but 
it  is  safe  to  predict  that  they  will  all  recognize 
the  enormous  increase  in  land  values  that  a 
strip  of  city  will  bring  with  it  and  bid  accord- 
ingly. It  is  interesting  to  speculate  on  the 
size  of  their  bids  for  such  a  wonderful  advan- 
tage in  view  of  their  very  liberal  gifts  to  steam 


ROADTOWN  159 

and  trolley  roads  which  have  given  them  so  lit- 
tle in  comparison. 

The  location  of  the  first  Roadtown  will  be 
determined  by  the  people  who  give  the  new 
form  of  civilization  the  warmest  welcome.  If 
you  have  any  inducements  or  practical  sug- 
gestions to  offer,  write,  I'll  be  glad  to  welcome 
and  consider  them.  It  may  be  in  Long  Island 
or  in  California  or  in  Japan,  but  the  locations 
of  the  subsequent  Roadtowns  will  be  more 
easily  predicted :  they  will  be  wherever  there  is 
enough  population  to  make  cooperative  house 
construction  worth  while  and  sufficient  wealth 
and  enterprise  to  execute  such  an  undertaking. 

The  logical  location  for  early  lines  of  Road- 
town  will  be  at  the  end  of  present  rapid  transit 
or  commuting  facilities  of  our  cities  or  will  tap 
these  lines  far  enough  out  to  avoid  high  land 
values.  Thus  there  will  be  ample  vacant 
ground  to  start  a  Roadtown  at  the  uptown  end 
of  the  New  York  Subway  that  could  build 
right  through  to  Boston.  Real  estate  within 
or  near  the  city  will,  of  course,  be  higher  in 
price,  but  as  such  Roadtown  dwellings  will  be 


160  ROADTOWN 

able  to  compete  in  every  sense  with  the  present 
prevailing  forms  of  two  story  houses  seen  in 
such  districts,  and  have  in  addition  all  the 
Roadtown  advantages  including  indoor  rapid, 
noiseless  and  dustless  transportation,  they 
could  afford  to  pay  for  the  extra  value  of  such 
land  and  still  be  the  object  of  envy  by  the  out- 
side residents.  As  soon  as  it  has  passed  be- 
yond the  present  suburban  or  speculative  belt, 
the  Roadtown  will  at  once  take  on  the  life  of 
the  city  in  the  country  as  pictured  in  this  book, 
yet  all  the  inhabitants  will  have  quick  and  cheap 
transportation  services  into  the  old  cities. 

The  demand  for  such  Roadtowns  for  com- 
muting purposes  will  be  so  great  at  first  as  to 
prevent  the  earlier  structures  from  coming  into 
their  full  use  as  homes  for  a  population  that 
shall  support  itself  by  work  within  the  Road- 
town proper.  How  quickly  this  demand  will 
be  filled  is  a  matter  of  speculation.  The  eco- 
nomic incentive  will  readjust  wisely.  It  never 
fails.  At  present,  with  all  the  suburban  devel- 
opment, the  heart  of  the  city  is  becoming  more 
and  more  densely  populated.  We  have  not 
been  able  to  get  people  out  of  the  city  as 


ROADTOWN  161 

rapidly  as  the  population  increases.  The 
Roadtown  will  materially  aid  in  this  fight  to 
get  the  people  out  of  the  city  to  live. 

A  Real  Remedy  for  Congestion. 

"  But  with  the  development  of  the  Roadtown 
a  new  factor  enters  this  fight  against  conges- 
tion. The  suburbanite  must  depend  upon  the 
city  for  his  livelihood,  the  Roadtowner  need 
not.  The  result  will  be  that  the  Roadtown  as 
soon  as  built  will  begin  to  take  people  away 
from  the  city  to  work  as  well  as  away  to  sleep, 
and  this  means  a  real  relief  of  city  congestion, 
not  simply  the  frantic  piling  up  of  humanity 
twice  each  day  at  the  gates  of  the  city. 

You  might  ask,  what  will  be  the  ultimate 
place  of  the  Roadtown  in  the  civilization  of  the 
world?  The  answer  is  as  impossible  as  would 
have  been  an  answer  to  the  ultimate  place  of 
the  railroad  in  the  civilization  of  the  world  had 
that  question  been  proposed  seventy  years  ago. 
The  railroad  is  a  great  civilizer.  It  carries 
with  it  all  the  material  aids  to  civilization  that 
can  be  hauled  in  a  freight  car.  The  Roadtown 
carries  into  the  home  what  the  railroad  takes 


162  ROADTOWN 

only  to  the  freight  and  express  office,  and  it 
carries  in  addition  the  civilization  of  pipes  and 
wires  which  the  railroad  cannot  transport.  It 
would  have  been  a  wonderful  vision  for  a  man 
of  the  first  quarter  of  the  last  century  to  have 
attempted  to  picture  the  ultimate  effect  of  the 
railroad — but  his  vision  would  have  fallen  short 
of  the  reality.  Try  for  a  moment  now  to  take 
the  railroad  out  of  civilization  and  substitute 
the  methods  of  1825.  I  believe  the  Roadtown 
will  be  to  the  twentieth  century  what  the  rail- 
road was  to  the  nineteenth  and  that  my  present 
efforts  to  predict  its  future  would  fall  just  as 
far  short  of  the  reality  as  would  Stevenson's 
dream  of  the  railroad  civilization  of  to-day. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

IN  R0ADT0WN  THERE  WILL  BE  NO  TRUSTS 

THE  only  effective  way  to  fight  the  trusts 
is  to  cease  to  patronize  them  and  the  only 
way  to  cease  to  patronize  them  is  to  move  into 
an  environment  which  is  more  economically  effi- 
cient. 

Every  labor  saving  invention  in  the  history 
of  man  has  thrown  someone  out  of  work.  The 
grain  binders  were  broken  and  burned  by  the 
old  fashioned  harvest  hands.  The  hand  type- 
setters opposed  the  introduction  of  the  lino- 
type. But  the  economic  invention  came  in 
spite  of  this  opposition.  The  Roadtown  is  a 
new  arrangement  of  civilization,  a  new  plan 
for  all  commerce  and  all  city  building;  it  will 
do  for  the  entire  programme  of  transportation 
what  the  linotype  did  for  the  type  setting  in- 
dustry. The  entire  industrial  life  of  the  world 
will  desert  the  present  economic  system  just  as 

163 


164  ROADTOWN 

the  farmers  deserted  the  old  scythes  and  flails. 
As  a  result  a  large  proportion  of  the  people 
who  now  work  with  the  crude  systems  will  be 
thrown  out  of  employment.  Who  are  these 
people?  They  are  teamsters  and  expressmen, 
and  clerks,  messengers,  and  bookkeepers,  and 
others  too  numerous  to  mention,  but  these  peo- 
ple are  merely  the  servants  of  private  corpora- 
tions. And  the  corporations  own  the  ware- 
houses, wholesale  and  retail  stores,  and  the  little 
shops,  and  street  cars,  and  cabs,  and  conduits, 
and  the  gas  and  electricity,  and  hundreds  of 
other  things.  These,  corporation  or  trust 
owners,  and  their  political  henchmen  who  live 
on  the  fat  of  the  land  and  who  by  employing 
a  lot  of  servants  distribute  our  goods  and  in- 
telligence to  us  by  a  crude,  wasteful,  dishonest, 
and  disorganized  system,  will  also  eventually 
lose  their  jobs.  The  men  who  drive  the 
wagons  will  learn  to  raise  vegetables,  and  the 
girls  behind  the  hat  counters  will  learn  to  make 
hats.  But  their  bosses  with  appetites  whetted 
to  luxury  will  be  out  of  a  job  "for  fair"  for 
with  the  exception  of  the  mines  and  foreign 
commerce,  the  Roadtown  will  leave  them  no 


ROADTOWN  165 

chance  to  graft  off  the  producer  and  consumer 
by  the  aid  of  a  privately  owned  and  barbar- 
ously inefficient  mechanism  of  distribution  and 
house  construction. 

Verily,  there  will  be  weeping  and  wailing, 
and  soft  hands  blistered,  and  fair  names  of  the 
privileged  families  without  prestige  in  the 
world,  for  the  trusts  will  have  lost  their  jobs, 
and  there  will  be  but  one  trust,  and  that  will  be 
owned  by  the  people. 

Shall  we  Miss  Them? 

The  Roadtown  is  remarkable  for  the  new 
things  that  it  will  add  to  civilization,  but  it  is 
even  more  remarkable  for  the  things  that  will 
be  conspicuous  for  their  absence.  In  the 
Roadtown  there  will  be  no  streets,  no  street 
cars  and  no  "subway  air";  no  kitchens,  no  coal 
bins,  no  back  yards  or  back  alleys  full  of  crime 
and  tin  cans ;  no  brooms,  no  feather  dusters,  no 
wash  day ;  no  clothes  line,  no  beating  the  carpet 
or  shaking  the  rug  out  the  window ;  there  will 
be  no  clothes  brushes,  no  pressing  clothes  by 
hand,  no  lugging  the  beds  out  to  air  them ;  the 
Roadtown  home  will  have  no  dish  washing,  no 


166  ROADTOWN 

cooks,  no  maids,  no  janitors,  no  furnace,  no 
ashes,  no  dust,  no  noise,  no  kindling  to  split 
nor  buy  for  five  cents  a  bundle ;  there  will  be  no 
moving  vans,  no  coal  wagons,  no  ice  wagons,  no 
garbage  carts,  no  ash  carts,  no  milk  wagons, 
and  no  delivery  wagons;  no  horses  except  for 
pleasure  drives  and  no  need  for  a  society  for 
the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals ;  in  Road- 
town  there  will  be  no  fire  engines,  no  cabs  nor 
taxi-cabs,  no  mixing  of  pedestrians  and  ve- 
hicles, no  street  car  blockades,  no  grade  cross- 
ings and  no  "death  avenues";  there  will  be  no 
bargain  rushes,  no  small  shops,  no  middleman's 
profits,  no  bill  boards,  no  advertising  of  useless 
and  harmful  articles,  no  waste  of  money  for 
little  bottles  and  cans  and  bags,  no  adulterated 
food,  no  wilted  vegetables,  no  unsanitary 
"loose"  milk,  no  systems  of  cesspools  and 
wells  to  spread  typhoid  and  other  disease 
germs;  for  the  Roadtown  farmer  there  will 
be  no  hitching  the  horse  to  go  to  church  nor 
driving  to  town  to  get  the  mail,  no  kerosene 
lamps,  no  slipshod  ungraded  country  school,  no 
lightning  rod  peddlers  and  no  book  agents ;  in 
Roadtown  there  will  be  no  need  for  umbrellas, 


ROADTOWN  167 

rubbers  nor  overcoats  in  the  daily  routine  of 
business — such   protection   from  the   weather 
being  only  required  by  the  keepers  of  live  stock 
and  upon  occasional  visits  to  the  old  style  city ; 
there  will  be  no  snow  to  shovel,  no  slipping  of 
horses   or  humans   on  icy  streets,   no   street 
cleaners,  no  water  wagons,  no  swill  tubs,  no 
rain  barrels,  no  manure  carts,  no  dumb-waiters 
to  pull  up,  no  popping  and  sizzling  steam  radi- 
ators (hot  water  heating  instead)  ;  no  beds  to 
make,  no  expensive  strings  of  funeral  carriages, 
no  fire  escapes,  no  waiting  in  rain  or  snow  to 
catch  a  car,  no  canned  goods,  no  delicatessen 
diet ;  in  the  Roadtown  there  will  be  no  unem- 
ployed problem  and  no  men  out  of  a  job  except 
those  who  are  too  lazy  to  work,  and  yet  there 
will  be  many  changes  in  occupation,  for  the 
Roadtown  will  have  no  news  boys,  no  mes- 
senger boys,  no  mail  carriers,  no  traffic  police- 
men, no  teamsters,  no  cabbies,  no  street  car 
conductors,  no  expressmen,  no  delivery  boys, 
no  peddlers,  no  push  cart  men,  no  waiters  to 
tip,  no  insurance  agents ;  no  organ  grinders,  no 
rag  pickers  nor  old  clothes  men,  no  street  fakirs 
nor  sandwich  men;  no  beggars,  no  liveried 


168  ROADTOWN 

flunkies;  no  sweat  shops,  no  child  labor,  no 
wage  slavery,  no  rent  on  fictitious  land  values, 
and  no  trusts  to  gobble  up  the  fruits  of  labor. 

The  history  of  civilization  shows  that  me- 
chanics control  economics,  that  economics  con- 
trol morality,  and  that  the  morality  of  the  time 
is  expressed  through  the  law;  and  conversely 
law  does  not  control  morality  nor  morality 
economics  nor  economics  mechanics.  Me- 
chanics is  the  foundation  of  all  that  is  good 
and  bad  in  civilization,  law  the  paint  on  the  fin- 
ished structure.  The  painters  who  are  con- 
stantly retouching  the  exterior  get  credit  for  a 
good  deal  of  change  but  their  work  is  of  little 
real  moment  compared  with  the  changing  of 
the  fundamental  structure. 

The  Boadtown  Religion. 

A  tremendous  step  toward  the  perfection  of 
civilization  will  be  made  when  the  world  recog- 
nizes the  two  following  principles: 

(1)  That  cities  should  be  built  in  long  con- 
tinuous lines. 

(2)  That  housing,  as  a  framework,  and 
scientific  transportation,  as  a  compact  mechan- 


ROADTOWN  169 

ism  to  fit  therein,  should  be  developed  as  a 
single  enterprise. 

The  Roadtown  will  tend  to  perfect  transpor- 
tation as  applied  to  people,  commodities  and 
intelligence.  Highly  perfected  transportation 
means  opportunity  to  get  together  or  to  get 
apart.  It  means  socialism  for  the  socialist,  to- 
gether with  all  the  advantages  of  individualism, 
and  individualism  for  the  individualist,  to- 
gether with  all  the  advantages  of  coopera- 
tion. 

The  mission  of  the  Roadtown  is  to  assist  in 
the  development  of  the  physical,  mental  and 
moral  qualities  of  mankind  through  the  gradual 
elimination  of  all  physical,  mental  and  moral 
waste,  thus  creating  an  environment  where 
selfishness  and  inequality  of  opportunity  will 
gradually  disappear  and  where  man  will  finally 
en j  oy  all  the  fruits  of  his  labor. 

The  above  expresses  the  principles  of  the 
Roadtown  religion — a  faith  which  holds  that 
the  Kingdom  of  God  can  be  realized  on  this 
earth  and  points  a  practical  way  by  which  such 
realization  may  be  attained. 

If  you  accept  these  principles  and  can  add 


170  ROADTOWN 

them  to  the  faith  of  your  present  religion  you 
are  indeed  a  Roadtowner. 

The  Roadtown  is  as  humanitarian  and  revo- 
lutionary in  its  principles  as  is  Single  Tax  or 
Socialism  and  like  these  is  destined  to  become 
a  great  social  movement  enlisting  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  those  who  have  developed  the  so- 
cial conscience — who  believe  in  it  and  are  will- 
ing to  work  for  a  civilization  wherein  the  equi- 
table distribution  of  wealth  may  be  realized. 
But  these  other  movements  depend  for  their  re- 
sults largely  upon  the  conversion  of  the  major- 
ity of  the  population  to  their  creeds.  Road- 
town  will  be  a  great  social  "movement"  but  it 
will  be  more  than  a  movement — it  will  be  a 
realization  and  that  speedily.  In  fact  the  ob- 
ject of  the  author  in  painfully  preparing  this 
little  volume  ( for  I  am  a  round  peg  in  a  square 
hole  at  book  writing)  is  to  lay  the  Roadtown 
plan  before  the  public  to  a  degree  that  will 
stimulate  the  active  interest  of  enough  people 
to  accomplish  through  their  cooperation  the 
financing,  and  building  the  first  section  of 
Roadtown.  The  first  section  built,  no  human 
power  can  stop  the  Roadtown  revolution. 


ROADTOWN  171 

So  if  you  find  in  the  spirit  of  Roadtown  a 
response  to  the  feeling  within  your  own  soul 
write  to  the  author  that  you  may  be  counted 
upon  as  a  Roadtowner  to  believe  and  to 
perform. 

If  you  do  not  understand  the  mechanics  of 
Roadtown,  write.  There  are  engineers  who  do 
and  who  can  explain  this  to  you.  If  you  are 
an  architect  or  an  engineer,  an  inventor  or  an 
agriculturist  with  a  criticism  or  practical  idea 
that  will  make  Roadtown  better,  write.  If  you 
live  in  a  locality  suitable  for  the  construction  of 
a  Roadtown  line,  write.  If  you  know  of  any 
one  else  who  can  help  the  cause  write  to  them 
to  write. 

Whether  you  be  preacher,  carpenter  or  pub- 
licist ;  bookkeeper,  broker  or  blacksmith,  if  you 
wish  to  play  a  part  in  founding  the  new  civil- 
ization, talk,  preach,  speak,  write  or  publish 
the  Roadtown  gospel.  Send  the  book  to  one 
friend  and  advise  the  rest  to  buy  it.  Write  an 
article  on  the  subject  and  get  your  editor 
friend  to  publish  it. 

If  you  fear  that  the  crookedness  of  finance 
that  has  blackened  many  a  fair  gift  to  human- 


172  ROADTOWN 

ity  may  smirch  this  latest  boon — make  it  your 
business  to  investigate  fully ;  consult  with  men 
of  wide  experience  and  unquestionable  honor 
who  are  well  posted  on  this  particular  subject 
who  may  help  you  to  establish  in  your  mind 
the  true  nature  and  phenomenal  significance  of 
this  movement.  And  above  all  if  you  are  but  a 
man  among  men  toiling  at  your  allotted  task 
and  taking  the  stinted  portion  which  the 
"system"  allows  you,  write,  that  your  name 
may  be  filed  on  the  waiting  list  as  one  of  those 
to  whom  the  occupancy  of  a  Roadtown  house 
may  be  offered  as  soon  as  the  cement  of  the  first 
section  has  hardened  and  the  civilizing  currents 
have  been  turned  into  the  arteries  of  "A  New 
Heaven  and  A  New  Earth"  here  on  this  God 
plowed  and  human  harrowed  planet  in  this 
the  early  years  of  the  Twentieth  Century. 


THE  END 


